Brian Harmon's Blog

August 1, 2017

Something Wickeder This Way Comes

The seventh Rushed book is now available for preorder!


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0741353WJ


Eric’s past comes back to haunt him when he arrives home to find old friends waiting for him. Now he’s in for a rough night of magic, mayhem and terror as he races the clock against a murderous coven of dark witches with incredible and gruesome powers. Failure means he and his friends won’t survive the night. But their only chance of seeing the sunrise might mean a fate even worse than death…


Rushed: Something Wickeder will be available on August 15, but keep scrolling for a sneak peek at the first chapter!



 


Chapter One


Eric sat down behind the wheel of his silver PT Cruiser and started the engine. It’d been a long day, one of the longest he’d had in a long time, and he was happy to finally be at the end of it. He didn’t even stick around to finish up his grading. He just wanted to go home. He was tired. He was irritable. And he was positively done with teenagers.

At least he had dinner to look forward to. Karen promised she’d make him fried chicken. It was one of his all-time favorites, and she didn’t make it very often. She preferred to take a healthier approach to cooking, and rarely fried anything. He didn’t mind, of course. Healthy was good. And she was a fantastic cook, so anything she put on the table was virtually guaranteed to be delicious. But it was an old favorite, his mother’s specialty when he was growing up, so every now and then, just to show him some extra love, she’d indulge him.

(And Karen’s fried chicken was way better than his mother’s…though no one alive was scary enough to make him admit that to Mom.)

But although he was eager to get home, he didn’t shift the Cruiser into gear. Instead, he leaned back in the seat and withdrew his cell phone from the front pocket of his khaki pants.

He’d never really liked cell phones. He was annoyed by all the people in the world who constantly seemed to have them glued to their faces. He found it rude, obnoxious and utterly unnecessary. Especially when it came to high schoolers. He was notorious among students and faculty alike for confiscating cell phones in his classroom. He never would’ve owned one in the first place if Karen hadn’t insisted. She believed it wasn’t safe to be without one. (And she liked for him to never be more than a phone call away, of course.) He absolutely despised them. But in recent years his cell phone had become far more of a necessity than he ever expected it to. Begrudgingly, he was forced to admit to himself that he actually needed the stupid thing.

But he was far too stubborn to admit it to anyone else.

It rang as soon as it was in his hand, as he knew it would. He accepted the call and put it on speaker, just the way Karen had shown him to do. Then, as he looked out at the parking lot, at the last few straggling students making their way home for the day, he said, “How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay,” replied Isabelle. There was no pause. No hesitation. She knew everything he was going to say well before he said it, after all.

“Really?” he pressed.

This time, there was a pause. “Yeah. I mean, I think so.”

He didn’t push the subject. He merely stared out at the sunny afternoon around him and waited for her to go on in her own time.

It was a beautiful day for mid-November. People were out enjoying the weather. There was a small group of boys walking down the sidewalk, goofing off. On the other side of the street, an old man was walking his dog. A very pretty girl with long, black hair walked past his parking spot. She saw him sitting there and gave him a small, friendly smile and a wave. He didn’t recognize her. She wasn’t one of his students. But he waved anyway.

“I don’t really know if it’s possible for me to not be okay, you know?”

He nodded. He did know. Or at least, he thought he did. Isabelle wasn’t like anyone else in the world. She was different. She was special.

“I’m not sure if I can even feel anything for myself,” she went on. “Sometimes I think all my emotions belong to someone else. They’re stolen. I just feel whatever you’re feeling. You and…” She paused again. “And them,” she finished quietly.

“I don’t believe that,” said Eric.

Isabelle wasn’t a part of this world anymore. She was trapped somewhere outside of the normal flow of time. For her, the passing of days was meaningless. She never grew hungry or thirsty. She never tired or grew bored or felt impatient. She never yearned for anything because she was frozen in place both physically and mentally. The only concept she retained of the passage of time was the three psychic connections she shared. One with Eric, one with her mother and one with her father.

Except that two nights ago, Isabelle’s father suffered a stroke.

Eric could scarcely imagine what she must have already endured. She had a terrifyingly personal perspective of the moment, a back-stage view as the clot began starving his brain of blood. She’d described it to him as something like a strange and disorienting cloud rolling in over his consciousness, leaving him confused and helpless.

Jerrell Albin might have died that night if the phone hadn’t rung so late, waking his wife, Reta. Isabelle hung up without speaking, leaving her mother to wonder whether the call was an exceptionally well-timed wrong number or a sign from heaven. (The truth, of course, would never in a million lifetimes occur to her.)

But although her father was still alive, the true extent of the damage still wasn’t known, and Isabelle had since been overwhelmed by the almost constant deluge of raw emotions gushing from her terrified mother’s tormented mind.

Eric felt awful for the poor woman. She’d already suffered more than any parent ever should. She’d been waiting thirty-eight years for the truth about what really happened to her thirteen-year-old daughter that awful July day. And she had no one left in this world but her husband. If she lost him, too, she’d be all alone. For the rest of her life…

“Don’t worry about me,” she insisted, forcing herself to perk up. “You need to get home and take a load off. You’ve had a rough day.”

The psychic connection only worked one way. She could read his thoughts, feel his emotions and even sense certain things about his surroundings, but he couldn’t do any of those things. If not for this trick with the phone, he, like her parents, might never have even known she was there. But the two of them had shared a lot of conversations since the day she rescued him from the deranged Altrusk House. They’d grown close. And he knew her well enough to know that she wasn’t entirely okay. She was only pretending to be brave because she didn’t want him to worry about her. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

“I know you will. But I also know you’re tired.”

He was. It wasn’t the worst day he’d ever had by any means, but it certainly wasn’t the best. It’d been exhausting. The students had seemed unusually wound up for some reason. And not just his. Chad Whelt kept blaming it on the full moon. And poor Charlene Tonnes, the new science teacher, was nearly in tears by the end of the day. Even the best and brightest students had all seemed unfocused and restless. The rest were moody, disruptive and even downright disrespectful. Overall, it was a pretty lousy Monday.

“I can’t relax much when I’m worried about you.”

“You’re sweet,” she told him.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do. But there’s nothing you can do. Just go home. Relax. Enjoy your dinner. We can talk more later.”

Without disconnecting the call, he placed the phone into the cup holder and shifted the Cruiser into gear. “We can talk while I drive,” he said. “I don’t want you to be alone right now.”

Isabelle gave a quiet little huff of a laugh. “Always my hero,” she said, almost too soft for him to hear.

“You were mine first,” he reminded her.

He left the parking lot and set off across town toward home. For the first couple minutes, they were quiet. Then, just when Eric was beginning to wonder if she’d disconnected the call on him, she said, “I know how I should feel.”

He glanced down at the phone, surprised.

“I should feel scared. Scared of losing my dad. Scared I won’t be able to find my way home before he dies… Scared of never seeing him or my mom ever again… Scared…” She fell silent for another moment. He waited. Finally, she said, “Scared I’ll never even be able to see them in heaven because I don’t know if I can even die…”

Eric wasn’t sure what to say to that. He couldn’t tell her that would never happen. He didn’t know that for sure. And it wasn’t like he could lie to her.

“I do feel scared,” said Isabelle. “But I just don’t know if I feel scared because I’m scared, or if I only feel scared because I can feel how scared my mom is.”

Most days, she could easily tune everybody out. She wasn’t always in their heads. She let them have their privacy. But strong, negative emotions, like anger, sadness and fear, were impossible for her to ignore. They dragged her into their consciousness and wouldn’t let her go. For as long as this crisis with her father lasted, regardless of the outcome, she was going to be forced to experience every moment of it with them.

“What if I don’t ever find my way out of here?” she continued. “Everybody dies. Nothing I can do will stop that. My parents will die. You’ll die. And when you’re all gone, when you all go silent… What then? What’s going to happen to me? Will I stop feeling anything? Will I be anything when all the voices are gone?”

Eric felt a profound sadness deep in his heart. He wished he had the answers for her. Any answer. But he was just an unremarkable high school English teacher with an odd habit of finding weird and fantastic things. Things like Isabelle. He couldn’t tell her who she was or why these things had happened to her.

Maybe it was just that God was cruel.

He didn’t know.

He pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. For a moment, he just sat there, staring through the windshield, feeling helpless.

“I’m sorry,” said Isabelle. “I shouldn’t have dumped all that on you.”

“It’s fine,” he insisted, taking the phone out of the cup holder. “I want you to talk to me.”

“I keep thinking I should call them. Talk to them. Tell them the truth. I know they’d want to know. But… I also know they’ve worked so hard to move on. I just… I’m just not sure knowing the truth would make things better. They want to believe that I’m alive and well out there somewhere, but deep down they’re sure I’m in a better place. The truth might bring them some joy…but it would also bring them fresh pain and worry…because I still can’t go home. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to go home.”

His heart ached at the thought, but she was right. After all these years, all their hope had almost certainly shriveled and died. Their thirteen-year-old girl would be fifty. They knew by now, no matter how much they might deny it to themselves, that they’d never see her again in this world. Telling them the truth, even if they’d believe such an outlandish story, would only bring all the pain that’s gone numb over the years flooding back.

“I’m sorry,” said Isabelle.

“Don’t be. I mean it. I’m here for you if you need to talk. Always.”

“There’s nothing either of us can do anyway,” she said. And she was right. The doctors said it could be days before they knew anything more. Jerrell Albin was still alive. For now, there was nothing to do but wait and see what the future held. “We’ll talk later. Go inside. Go to Karen. I like when you’re with Karen. She makes you happy. I could use some happy.”

Eric smiled. “I’ll try my best,” he promised.

Isabelle disconnected the call and the phone went dark. He slipped it back into his pocket and made his way inside, his thoughts swirling like a thunderstorm inside his head.

She was right, of course. Worrying about Isabelle wasn’t going to help her. She was already getting far too much worry from her mother. What she needed was something warmer, more comforting. He tried to focus on Karen. He tried to focus on how happy he was to be home after the day he’d had. He tried to focus on the delicious dinner he’d been looking forward to all day.

But as soon as he stepped into the kitchen, he knew immediately that the fried chicken was canceled and his bad day had only just begun.

“Oh good,” said Karen. “You’re home.” She was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee clasped between her hands. She looked a little frazzled, and understandably so. Right next to her, with her own cup in front of her, sat Delphinium Thorngood.

“Hello, Eric,” said the beautiful witch. “It’s good to see you again.”


 


Rushed: Something Wickeder


by Brian Harmon


August 15, 2017


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Published on August 01, 2017 22:22

May 9, 2017

So Sorry for the Delay

Hello everyone.  I’d like to thank you all for being so patient with me these past several months.  I know I haven’t been posting much on social media.  I haven’t been updating my website or my blog.  And my next book release is long overdue.  I don’t blame you if you’ve become frustrated with me.  I’m sorry.  The truth is that things have not been well here.  You see, I recently lost my father to Leukemia.  It’s been a very difficult time for me and for my family.  I’m sure at least some of you will know what it’s like all too well.  The whole world has changed…  Everything feels different than it did before…  Heavier…  Hollower…  And I’ve had trouble finding my way back to the comfort of my fictional worlds.  It’s hard to be a writer when all the words in the world seem to fall short…  So I hope you’ll bear with me just a little longer while I sort things out and try to get back into the swing of things.  I just need a little time.  Just a little more…  And then I promise I’ll be back again.  Thank you.


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Published on May 09, 2017 11:34

October 6, 2016

Who Was Wendell Gilbert?

From the pages of the Southeast Missouri Post

“Who Was Wendell Gilbert?”

By Carlton Hurldon

Wednesday, July 2, 2008


Briar Hills, Missouri, like any American city, has its share of dark history.  The local police have entire boxes of unresolved cases dating back over a hundred years.  But the most intriguing of all these is arguably the disappearance of Wendell Gilbert.

Gilbert was born March 11, 1865 in Chicago.  The son of Ruben Gilbert, a tremendously successful investment broker, Wendell spent much of his youth traveling the world with his parents and, at an early age, became fascinated with world architecture.  He had a gift for aesthetic design and quickly made a name for himself on the west coast with a number of ambitious projects, including the erection of the Grasby Center in San Diego, perhaps his most famous landmark.

In 1897, Gilbert traveled abroad and spent the next twelve years in Europe, working on increasingly elaborate structures like the Allwardt Building in Great Britain, the Holgado Tower in France and the Winderbaum Center in Germany, as well as other less notable projects in Spain, Sweden and Italy.  Many of these projects he oversaw simultaneously, traveling frequently between building sites and leaving his foremen to oversee the daily work.

Upon returning to the states in 1909, Gilbert spent a few short years on the east coast before moving to the upper Midwest, then back to his birthplace of Chicago.  A few years later, he moved again to St. Louis and finally found his way to Briar Hills, where he spent the final ten years of what is known of his life.

His most notable work in Briar Hills included the extensive renovations to the city’s police station and hospital, and he designed and built the new courthouse and public library.  But although the quality of his work was indisputable, Gilbert was met with harsh criticism for his insistence on using cheap immigrant labor instead of the skilled local tradesmen.

Then, in early 1927, he was contracted by Briar Hills University to design and build a new and much needed men’s dormitory to handle its rapidly growing student body.  Unfortunately, the project proved to be doomed from the start.

Gilbert made a number of changes to the project during the planning stage that directly contradicted the university’s requests, not the least of which was that Gilbert moved the structure more than a hundred yards from the university’s intended location.  He also changed the building’s materials from brick to a much pricier stone and significantly redesigned the electric and plumbing layouts in such a way that they would have been almost ten times as expensive as in the original plans.  The university protested these changes, but was met with resistance at every turn as Gilbert manipulated them through a veritable maze of legal and bureaucratic diversions, which kept them distracted and disassociated from his work for many months.

Eventually, the university’s lawyers stepped in to seize the reigns of the project, but by then it was too late.  Gilbert was gone, as were all of his workers, apparently deported back to their own countries.  The money was lost and all that was ever completed of the university’s new dormitory was an empty set of useless concrete walls.

It would be another two years before Briar Hills University finally opened the doors of its new men’s dormitory, now Daney Hall, located on Carey Street.  Built mostly on funds donated by sympathetic parties and through vigorous fundraising, this new building was considerably smaller than the one Gilbert was contracted to build, but would prove to serve the institution’s needs for several years.

Meanwhile, the site of the original failed project remained untouched.  In 1952, a large plot of neighboring farmland was purchased, providing cheaper and more convenient locations on which to build.  As a result, the university has never bothered to tear down Gilbert’s useless concrete walls and today the location is little more than an overgrown eyesore, known by many of the locals as “Gilbert House.”

Wendell Gilbert, the famed architect, in spite of his accomplishments, was now considered a fraud and a thief.  Local authorities assumed that he took the money and deposited it in an unknown offshore account.  His strange behavior (the changes to the university’s plans and the bureaucratic runaround) was assumed to be a smokescreen to keep the university distracted while he committed his crime.  And once the money was safe, he obviously left the country.  But several details about his crime did not add up.  The most glaring of these details was the amount of money Gilbert supposedly stole.  It was significantly less than what he left unclaimed in his bank accounts after his disappearance.

What really became of Wendell Gilbert?  No evidence has ever been uncovered to shed light on what was really going on.  Some historians believe that the brilliant architect must have gone mad.  Others insist that his odd behavior indicated that he might have been being blackmailed and was likely murdered by an unknown enemy.  A few creative locals have even suggested that Gilbert was caught up in something supernatural.  Some have even gone so far as to speculate that he left clues hidden throughout his life’s work around the world, clues that, if correctly deciphered from the many buildings he designed and renovated, would reveal the secret location of the stolen money or perhaps something even more valuable.


[Carlton Hurldon is a local historian and an enthusiastic collector of regional legends and mysteries.  He has lived his entire life in the Briar Hills area and is the author of four books and numerous guest articles for the Southeast Missouri Post.]


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Published on October 06, 2016 07:10

“Mysterious City”

From the pages of the Southeast Missouri Post


“Mysterious City”

By Carlton Hurldon

Monday, October 22, 2007

The city of Briar Hills is a compact metropolis and an urban oasis amid hundreds of miles of rural farmland in southeast Missouri. Located on the banks of the Mississippi river, it is home to Briar Hills University and a very mysterious history.

Officially founded as a city in 1769, it is believed to have been settled much earlier, with some historians suggesting that the city might be among the oldest modern settlements west of the Mississippi River. But the city’s real origin might be even older than imagined. Archeological findings have revealed the presence of an unknown Native American village that occupied the area sometime before the arrival of these modern settlers. It remains unclear what became of these original residents, but it is generally accepted that they were either killed off by the invading European settlers or, more likely, by a rival tribe some time before their arrival.

Even in modern times, the history of Briar Hills has remained mostly murky. Surviving records predating the 1880s are rare and remarkably vague even when they are found. Little is known about the early years of the city and its government. Even several of the city’s prominent structures have mysterious origins. For example, although it is well known that the elaborate building currently housing the Heritage Museum used to be the courthouse before the construction of the new one in 1919, there are no records revealing what it might have been before it was the courthouse. The game warden’s office and the First Baptist Church have similar forgotten origins, though their beautiful architecture defied the rustic setting of the early city, and historians are unsure why such buildings would ever have been built here. Most peculiar of all, however, is the city’s complex subterranean underworld. Miles of tunnels exist beneath the streets and buildings of the city, a great many of which with no discernable purpose.

In recent decades, the tunnels have been augmented with modern sewers, but these remain entangled with a confusing labyrinth of passageways that have become the basis for countless superstitious and supernatural rumors. Everything from witchcraft to government conspiracies have been cited as the motives for the creation of the tunnels, which are said to intertwine with a vast natural cavern system, but no evidence exists to support any such claims. However, a surprising number of the city’s residents insist that the tunnels are haunted.

City officials deny the existence of any supernatural activity and warn curious residents not to enter the tunnels. “Those tunnels are city property and trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” warns David Dodd, Briar Hills’ chief of police. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt down there.” Most of the tunnel system’s entry points are gated off for public safety, but determined explorers have been known to find their way in, creating public hazard concerns for Dodd and the city police.

The original purpose of Briar Hills’ subterranean mystery may never be revealed, but there will definitely be no shortage of theories by those who call this city home. And who can blame them for letting their imaginations get away from them? One can only wonder what secrets might be hidden down there somewhere.


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Published on October 06, 2016 07:09

The Tunipet Mystery Boom

On Monday, May 16, 2011, at 1:09 in the afternoon, the city of Tunipet in northern Missouri was rocked by an unexplained “boom.” The event was centered around the main office of Bleckle Distributing Co. on North Timber Street.

All of the windows on the north and west sides of the building were blown out by the boom, raining broken glass and debris onto passing pedestrians and severely damaging at least one vehicle. But when rescue crews were dispatched to the scene, there was no sign of fire, no serious injuries, or any structural damage whatsoever. According to reports, there was no evidence found of any combustibles, ruling out any kind of explosion as the cause.

Witnesses reported a deep, “booming” noise that some described as sounding like an “underwater explosion” and the building’s windows blowing outward all at once, rattling cars and setting off alarms up and down the street. One witness even claimed to have seen a man thrown from the building’s second floor, but as there is no evidence of anyone admitted to any nearby hospitals with serious injuries, this particular detail can’t be proven.

None of the neighboring buildings were damaged in the event and no one seems to be able to explain what happened. There have been plenty of wild theories thrown around by conspiracy theorists, however, as has come to be expected of such unexplained stories.

Let’s just all agree to blame the Illuminati and move on.


Gavin P.

Ghost Trap


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Published on October 06, 2016 07:08

That’s Not Funny!

The residents of Pasoken, Wisconsin aren’t amused. For the past two years, the city has been plagued by unsettling sightings of a creepy clown lurking about at night.

That’s right, I said clown. Someone has been dressing up like a freaking clown and creeping around at night. No one knows the man’s identity, but he’s clearly trying to scare people, and I suspect he’s succeeding magnificently, considering that this scares me and I’ve never even been to Pasoken.

The prankster was first sighted on Sinnow Creek Road, just outside the city limits. Reportedly, he could be found on certain nights walking up and down the shoulder of the winding road in the dark, where unsuspecting travelers would get a scare as they came around the curves in the dark. This quickly earned him the name “The Sinnow Creek Road Clown.”

But the painted terror didn’t stay on Sinnow Creek Road long. Soon after he appeared, he began to turn up on other quiet roads in the area. And as of this past summer, he’s been spotted inside the city limits as well. Witnesses have reported catching sight of the clown crossing parking lots and sitting on darkened benches at night. He’s been spotted loitering in parks and even staring back from dark alleyways.

So far, authorities haven’t apprehended the clown. Of course, they also have no reason to. Although he’s scaring the pants off people, he technically hasn’t broken any laws. It’s not illegal to dress like a clown or walk around alone at night. He hasn’t trespassed on private property, harassed anyone or even attempted to hitchhike. Being creepy isn’t a crime, so residents of Pasoken are out of luck and I’ll be staying well away from there pretty much forever.


Gavin P.

Ghost Trap


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Published on October 06, 2016 07:07

The Unexplainable Disappearance of Aiden Chadwick

People love an unsolvable mystery. I know I do. There’s just something about the idea that you’ll never know what really happened. Take this one, for example, from Tuesday, April 14, 2009. Seventeen-year-old Aiden Chadwick went missing in Creek Bend, Wisconsin, never to be seen again. It sounds fairly mundane, but what makes this particular missing person case stand out is that it stubbornly defies logical explanation.

What we know about the case is that at 4:23 pm, Aiden entered a small, gas station convenience store with his mother. He can be seen walking in on the closed-circuit security cameras. He’s seen wandering around, even grabbing a bottle of soda from one of the coolers. He’s acting perfectly normal. Nothing suspicious. Then he steps out of frame and into a blind spot in the security footage and simply never steps back in.

There were plenty of witnesses on the scene, but none of them saw anything unusual. He didn’t leave through any door. All the exits were covered by cameras and there was no tampering found on the film. A thorough search of the property turned up nothing. No trace of Aiden was ever found. It was as if he simply ceased to exist.

The story went viral. For the next few days, it was all over the news. The media did what the media does and sensationalized it. The internet gave it wings and carried the news across the globe. Then, not surprisingly, came the crackpot theories and the conspiracy nuts, claiming everything from alien abductions and government cover-ups to time paradoxes and wormholes. People were scrutinizing every frame of the footage, pointing out every flaw on the film, claiming to see orbs, shadows and odd glitches that were somehow irrefutable proof of the presence of trans-dimensional beings.

But really, why not? No one else had any clue how to explain it. I know I can’t. It was like a locked room murder mystery, but there wasn’t even a body. I’m a proud skeptic and even I have to wonder if Aiden Chackwick didn’t fall through a freak hole in the universe.

Sadly, none of us will probably ever know the truth. But personally, I think I’m okay with that. Are you?


Amanda Doury

Ghost Trap


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Published on October 06, 2016 06:36

The Mystery of Isabelle Albin

On the morning of Friday, July 14, 1978, Isabelle Emilia Albin, age 13, vanished without a trace from Gold Sunshine Resort, a naturist camping grounds near Blochard, Wisconsin. She had long, brown hair and blue eyes. She was last seen just after breakfast, wearing yellow shorts and a pink halter top. No one saw her leaving the property, nor did anyone observe any suspicious activity, but she never returned for lunch.

The primary suspect in the case was a Green Bay resident named Herbert Kozachik, who had a prior record of sexual assault and was known to frequent the resort under an alias. But no evidence was ever found to convict Kozachik.

The case dragged on and eventually suspicion began to shift toward Isaac Altrusk, owner and operator of the rustic resort. At first, he was dismissed as a suspect owing to a solid alibi. Several resort guests had testified that his whereabouts that entire morning were well-known, making it impossible for him to have had any hand in her disappearance. After months of investigation, however, it came to light that Altrusk had a number of past aliases, all of them known con-men. But before the authorities could interrogate him, Altrusk, too, vanished without a trace and was never seen again. It is now widely believed that he murdered Isabelle and hid her body somewhere on the property, regardless of his alibi. At the very least, he is believed to have been an accomplice in the crime.

Authorities suspected that the nature of the resort might have made it a target for sexual deviants, and the negative media surrounding the case led to the permanent closure of the resort and a bad image for the naturist lifestyle, which was largely misunderstood by the locals at the time, many of whom were shocked to discover that there were children staying at the resort.

Naturism, or nudism, is a family-oriented lifestyle that emphasizes being comfortable in one’s own skin. Lewd behavior is strictly prohibited. But conservative locals were quick to demonize the resort and even demanded that Isabelle’s parents, Jerrell and Reta Albin, be held responsible for what happened. But fortunately, no charges were ever filed against them.

More than three and a half decades have passed since Isabelle was last seen, with absolutely no evidence to explain what became of her. Today, her parents only want closure. “All we want is to know the truth,” said Jerrell. “All we want is to be at peace.”

The Albins are no longer naturists. “There used to be joy in it,” said Reta. “But that’s all gone now. There’s no point in it. There’s no point in any of it.”


Gavin P.

Ghost Trap


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Published on October 06, 2016 06:24

May 23, 2016

It’s All Fun and Games…

It’s time again for another Eric Fortrell adventure!


Rushed: All Fun and Games


The sixth book in the Rushed series finds Eric facing some of his greatest fears when his wife, Karen, drags him to an eight-year-old child’s birthday party at the circus-themed family entertainment center called Bellylaugh Playland. Almost immediately, he discovers something horrifyingly amiss with the building and is hurled into a life-or-death race against the clock to save everyone from an ancient, slumbering evil. The ghostly children and temperamental décor he thinks he can handle. It’s the clowns that are really freaking him out. 


Available May 31!





Can’t wait?  That’s okay.  Read the first chapter right now!  My treat.

Chapter One

This was seriously going to suck.  And that was saying a lot, considering some of the massively sucky things Eric Fortrell had done in his life. 
He sighed.  It was one of those big, deep sighs that he reserved for times when he had no choice but to resign himself to something he really, really didn’t want to do. 
He was standing beside his silver PT Cruiser, staring at the imposing form of the building before him.  It wasn’t much to look at from the parking lot.  Blocky, mostly windowless, it kind of resembled an enormous barn, really, with its featureless, tin exterior.  It was big, but from this angle, it was perfectly unremarkable. 
The horrors were all inside
And they were substantial. 
Even if he could somehow avoid going in there, there was nowhere else to go.  There was nothing else here.  Behind him was the highway, but everything else was open pastures bordered by forests, as if he were a million miles from civilization. 
It was all an illusion, of course.  He was less than half a mile from the city limit sign.  Pasoken, Wisconsin and its population of twelve thousand lay just beyond that strip of woods to the west.  But he might as well be in the middle of the Sahara because whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to go in there. 
And he’d put it off too long already. 
He opened the Cruiser’s lift gate and stared at the huge bundle of colorful, bobbing balloons and the two huge, plastic sacks containing all the goody bags Karen and Holly had assembled the night before, each one stuffed with candy, party favors and a homemade cookie. 
An eight-year-old child’s birthday party. 
He’d almost rather drive back to Hedge Lake and go for another swim.    
He felt a blush creep up his neck as traffic sped by on the highway.  It was silly, but things like this always made him feel extremely self-conscious.  He hated the idea of people staring at him.  It sounded weird, he knew.  He was a high school teacher, after all.  He spent all day in front of a classroom.  But somehow that was different.  They were his students.  It was supposed to be that way.  It was natural.  But the idea of complete strangers looking at him, judging him…  It was unnerving.  He didn’t even like it when he was mowing his lawn and people drove past on the street.  It was irrational, but it was real.  He couldn’t help it. 
And why wouldn’t every passing driver be staring at him right now?  They couldn’t possibly miss him.  All these bright balloons were like a rainbow-colored beacon, irresistibly drawing everyone’s eyes straight to him. 
He knew nobody was laughing at him.  Lots of people had their kids’ birthday parties here.  No one would give him a second thought.  Just like no one thought anything about a man mowing his lawn.  But he just couldn’t help it.  It was who he was. 
Everyone deserved to have their own peculiarities, right?  (Although he supposed he might have claimed more than his fair share…) 
He fumbled the lift gate closed again and started across the parking lot toward the main doors.  Four hours, he told himself.  It’s only four hours.  How bad can it possibly be for just four hours? 
But he wasn’t fooling himself. 
It was going to suck. 
It was going to suck for four…  Long…  Hours… 
He stared at the sign over the glass doors as he approached. 
Bellylaugh Playland was one of those little Wisconsin treasures you sometimes read about in travel pamphlets.  A family entertainment center containing a three story, indoor playland (like the ones you found in McDonald’s restaurants all over the place, but on mega-steroids) with plenty of slides, tunnels, bridges, obstacles and climbing nets.  There was also an attached mirror maze, a large ball pit and a two story arcade.  For the grownups, there was a full restaurant and bar attached, but they weren’t open on weekends. 
Back in the eighties and nineties, it was a major family attraction.  Open seven days a week, people brought their kids from all over the Midwest to eat and play.  Over the years, however, the place had aged and lost some of its charm.  Prices went up.  Visitor numbers went down.  (And the owners had grown too old to keep up with it all, he’d heard.)  Now it was only open for private events and an extremely popular all-you-can-eat Friday night fish fry. 
As soon as he opened the door, his ears were accosted with the sounds of children screaming their heads off.  And most of the guests hadn’t even arrived yet.  The actual party didn’t start until eleven o’clock, more than half an hour from now. 
His four hours hadn’t even begun and already he felt a dull pain beginning to blossom in his right temple.  He hoped Karen still had aspirin in her purse.  He was going to need some before this day was over. 
But the children and all their noise didn’t bother him quite as much as the clown that met him as he entered the building. 
Six and a half feet tall, made of plaster and in need of fresh paint, the goofy, overexcited greeter was obviously supposed to look fun and friendly.  Even his proportions were made to look silly, with too-big eyes and ears and a spindly little neck and hands that looked like Mickey Mouse gloves.  And to some, he probably did appear endearing.  (There were plenty of weirdos out there who actually liked clowns for some reason.)  But to Eric, that huge, cartoon grin was less inviting than it was hungry and menacing. 
As far as he was concerned, any kid that didn’t burst into tears at the sight of that thing needed therapy.  Immediately.
And it wasn’t the only creepy statue in the building.  Bellylaugh Playland was full of frightful and lifeless clowns.  They were scattered all over the place, standing against walls, leaning against posts and perched over doorways, watching the children play and eat with their huge, dull eyes.  There was even one guarding the doors to the restroom.  (Good luck making it past that abomination if you were already doing the pee dance.)  Some, like the one guarding the entrance, were freakishly tall, towering over the children and even most of the adults.  Others were comically short, only about four feet tall.  With very few exceptions, the tall ones were long and skinny and the short ones were squat and fat. 
There weren’t any real clowns, thankfully.  At least, no fully-dressed, rainbow wig, baggy trousers, big shoes, horror-makeup-wearing clowns.  (Karen had assured him of that.)  But the staff here all wore those big, red clown noses all the time for some reason. 
God, he hated clowns.  He always did.  Even when he was young.  They creeped him out for some reason. 
He was standing on one side of the party room.  It was little more than a large, open space filled with tables and booths, surrounded by festively painted, circus themed walls and dotted with those god-awful clown statues.  From where he stood, he could see Karen putting her considerable decorating skills to work at the cake table by the far wall. 
He shot the plaster bozo one last dirty look and then made his way over to his wife, careful not to pop any of the balloons on the low-hanging light fixtures overhead. 
His cell phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it.  He didn’t have a free hand to answer it with.  And besides that, he didn’t even like the stupid thing.  Cell phones were annoying devices worshiped by idiotic people who couldn’t bear to remain unentertained for more than thirty seconds at a stretch.  He didn’t tolerate them in his classroom and would never have owned one if Karen hadn’t insisted that he have it in case of an emergency.  (And so that she could always reach him, of course.)  So yes, he had one of the stupid things, but that didn’t mean he used it everywhere he went.  He refused to be one of those obnoxious people in the grocery store with their phones perpetually glued to the sides of their heads. 
It was no secret that he felt this way.  Anyone who actually had his number knew this, so it was probably either a wrong number or one of those damned recorded messages instructing him to call about an urgent matter with a nonexistent credit card.  (He’d been getting more of those just lately, and it annoyed the hell out of him.) 
They’d leave a message.  Or they wouldn’t.  It didn’t really matter to him. 
Either way, the ringing stopped.
Karen was talking with two women.  One was a skinny, older blonde, the other a very short, younger brunette.  They looked enough alike to be related, mother and daughter, perhaps, or maybe even sisters.  It was hard to say for sure.  Eric didn’t recognize either of them.  He didn’t expect to.  Karen was catering this party for a friend of her mother.  Even she didn’t know anybody here. 
Both women walked away as he stepped up beside her.  “Your balloons,” he said.
“Finally!”  She turned and looked them over without sparing him a glance.  “What took so long?”
Eric almost never lied to her.  And he didn’t this time, either.  “I didn’t want to come,” he told her. 
She wasn’t amused.  The look she gave him said so in no uncertain terms.  But he met her humorless gaze without flinching.  It didn’t scare him.  On the contrary, he found that look perfectly adorable. 
(She had another look that she sometimes gave him that was considerably less adorable.  It was a little bit scary.  But not this one.) 
Without dropping his gaze, he lifted the plastic sacks and said, “I grabbed your goodies.” 
That almost earned him a smile.  It was there for just an instant.  Not on her lips, where anyone else could see it, of course, but in her pretty, brown eyes. 
She took the sacks from him without a word and immediately began arranging the goody bags on the table around the cake.  It was going to look fantastic when she was done.  It always did.  Karen had an incredible eye for detail. 
He watched her for a moment, then glanced across the room at one of the creepy clown statues.  “Doesn’t this place scare the kids?”
“Not everyone shares your weird clown phobia,” she told him. 
“It’s not a phobia.  I just don’t like them.  There’s a difference.”
“Uh huh.” 
“Where do you want me to put these balloons?”
“Just give them to Holly.”
“Where is she?”  But as soon as he turned around she was there, already reaching out for them.  To his extreme disappointment, she was wearing clown makeup.  “Not you, too,” he said. 
She stared back at him for a moment, confused.  “What?” 
It wasn’t so bad, really.  It wasn’t the whole costume.  Not even the hair.  For the most part, she looked perfectly nice.  All she’d done was paint her face with a few clownish details.  Her lips were bright red, with lines extending from the corners to exaggerate her mouth.  There was a little red heart on the tip of her nose, some blue eyeshadow, little circles of pink blush on her cheeks.  And she’d drawn a number of small, swirly lines and dots beneath her eyes, exaggerating her long eyelashes and simulating little freckles on her cheekbones.  It was really well done, too.  Neat lines, smooth colors.  She actually made a damn pretty clown. 
But she was a clown… 
“He’s afraid of clowns,” Karen told her. 
“Oh…”  She pressed one hand against her heart, as if wounded.  “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not afraid of them,” grumbled Eric, embarrassed.  “I just don’t like them.” 
“What’s not to like?” asked Holly.  “Clowns are adorable.” 
“Ever heard of John Wayne Gacy?” 
“Oh stop,” said Karen. 
“I’m just saying.”
Holly took the balloons and set off to finish decorating.  As she walked away, a tall, athletic-looking woman with a deep tan and short, spiky hair walked up to the table.  “Karen, can we put the refreshments out now, or do we have to wait until eleven?” 
“I think we can have them whenever we’re ready for them.  I’ll go check on it as soon as I’m done here.”
Karen supplied the cake and the treats, but the kitchen was supposed to supply the pizza and soda.  She would’ve happily provided all the food and refreshments, drawing on all of her many talents in the kitchen to whip up a fantastic spread of delicious and healthy, kid-friendly snacks and her own homemade punch—sugar-free, of course—but the birthday child wanted pizza and soda.  Eric, for one, was relieved.  She was already taking this far too seriously. 
A little boy, about three years old, ran over to the tall woman and seized the hem of her skirt.  He looked upset about something. 
The woman bent over him, concerned.  “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t like the clown!”
Eric glanced over at Karen, smirking, but she was making a point of ignoring him. 
“They’re just decoration, sweetie.  They’re not going to hurt you.”
But the boy shook his head.  “Not them.  The one in there.”  He pointed across the floor toward the mirror maze. 
“There aren’t any real clowns here,” she insisted.  “They’re all just decorations.”
But the boy wouldn’t let go of her skirt. 
Finally, she straightened up.  “Fine.  Let’s go see.”
The little boy didn’t look too thrilled with the idea, but he allowed himself to be led away. 
Eric watched them go and then glanced over at Karen again.
She still didn’t look at him.  “Don’t say it,” she warned.
“I’m telling you, clowns are evil.  It’s not just me.”
“He’s a little boy.  I’m sure he’s afraid of lots of things.  I’d expect a little more from someone your age.” 
Again, his cell phone started ringing.  Again, he ignored it. 
“Doesn’t matter what age you are.  Clowns are creepy.”
“Just because you think they’re creepy doesn’t mean they’re evil.”
“I’m pretty sure it does.” 
She rolled her eyes.  “Just stop it.  I’ve got work to do.” 
“Speaking of evil…” he said, glancing over his shoulder.  “She-devils at four o’clock.”
Karen glanced over to see her mother and sister walking through the door.  “Oh goody…”
“Well, on the bright side, the clowns suddenly look a little less demonic.”
“You be nice,” she snapped. 
“Me?  I’m always nice.  You’re the one who starts all the fights.”
She didn’t argue with him.  He was right, of course.  He wasn’t particularly fond of his in-laws.  He thought they were all a little stuck-up.  And he didn’t appreciate how critical they were of Karen, of course.  But they’d never been openly rude to him and he’d always remained civil to them. 
“Go check on the soda,” she told him.  “See if we can have it brought out now.”
He glanced around the empty party room, confused.  “Uh…where do I do that?”
“At the bar.  It’s at the back of the dining room in the restaurant, right through the arcade.”
She didn’t have to ask twice.  He walked away, happy for an excuse to not be present for the impending family reunion. 
“Ladies,” he greeted as he walked past his in-laws. 
Karen’s sister gave him an obligatory smile and a polite, “Hi,” which was about all he ever got from her.    
“Good morning, Eric,” said Karen’s mother.  “How are you?”
Peachy, he thought.  Aloud, he said, “I’m just fine, thank you.  Yourself?” 
“Oh, I can’t complain.” 
Eric smiled politely and continued on with his task without telling her that he was pretty sure she could complain.  And would.  About everything.  And poor Karen was going to have to listen to it all. 
She’d always had a tense relationship with her parents.  Her older sister, Joyce, was practically perfect in every way.  (According to them, that was.)  She was thin, beautiful, popular and intelligent.  By contrast, Karen was chubby, awkward, shy and combative.  Her parents—particularly her mother—never missed an opportunity to let her know how much they wished she would be more like her sister. 
As a result, she’d developed something of a mild eating disorder as a teenager, dieting to an extreme degree, eating as little as she could get away with.  And when she went off to college, more than a hundred pounds lighter than she left middle school, she rebelled in a big way.  Ironically, she and Eric met for the first time when she picked him up with the intention of having her first one-night stand. 
They’d been together ever since. 
She no longer worried about her weight.  She redirected her energy and cultivated her skills in the kitchen.  Instead of starving herself, she began making much healthier choices in her cooking and was much happier with herself in spite of gaining back some of that much-hated weight.  And he couldn’t possibly love her more.  As far as he was concerned, she was perfectly flawless. 
(And for the record, he’d have picked her over her stuck-up, fake older sister any day.) 
These days, Karen didn’t live under Joyce’s shadow or her parents’ scrutiny.  But those relationships remained strained, especially when it came to her mother.  She still felt compelled to prove herself.  So when Blanche Dashton called her daughter to ask if she’d plan and cater a birthday party for her friend’s grandchild, Karen took it as a challenge. 
And that was how Eric ended up here. 
He crossed the floor, pausing only to let three hyper boys run across his path, shouting at each other that the zombies were right behind them.  (What was everybody’s deal with zombies, anyway?)  Once the boys had run off again in search of a safe place to ride out the apocalypse, he continued on into the arcade. 
 From here, the screaming from the playland was a little more muffled, but now he was surrounded by loud, overlapping music and muffled, recorded voices from the dozens of brightly lit arcade machines that were all continuously competing for everyone’s attention.  It was difficult to decide which was worse. 
His cell phone rang again.  Who the hell kept calling him?  Nobody ever called him.  He reached into his pocket to look at the number, but before he could pull it out, he was distracted by the sound of someone calling his name. 
He turned and looked around.  There were a couple kids playing with the machines.  Not playing the machines, but playing with them.  They didn’t seem to have any money to actually play a game, so they were just sitting behind the steering wheels of a racing game, pretending to play.  They weren’t paying any attention to him.  And there was no one else there. 
On the far side of the room, he could see a very bored-looking college-age kid standing behind the prize counter, playing with his cell phone and wearing one of those stupid clown noses.  (He had no idea how they could stand wearing those all day.  It’d drive him nuts.)
It must’ve been his imagination.  A random recording from one of the machines that he misheard. 
Maybe there was a character named Eric in one of the games. 
He continued on, but quickly stopped again and turned to stare at a game screen next to him.  It was some kind of zombie shooter.  (Them again?)  It was playing a demo of a scene in a dark hallway.  But for a second there, in the corner of his eye as he walked by, it’d looked all wrong somehow.  It wasn’t a crisp, colorful image like the one he was seeing now.  It was grainy, distorted, more like a weak video feed. 
It was probably just a part of the game.  Maybe a creepy title screen of some sort.  But for that one, brief moment it had struck him as incredibly unsettling.  As crazy as it sounded, it seemed like something was staring out at him from that screen… 
His imagination.  It was probably those stupid clowns.  They made everything a million times creepier. 
He continued on through the arcade, past the doors on the far side and into the restaurant.  There were windows here, on the far side of the room, but the blinds were all closed.  The lights were out.  The dining area was dark and uninviting. 
And yet the atmosphere here was considerably nicer than in the rest of the building.  It still maintained the circus theme, but in a classier, more nostalgic way.  There were vintage circus posters hung on the walls, along with all manner of antique carnival memorabilia and countless photographs of acrobats and elephant trainers, circus tents and Ferris wheels, midways and clowns.  There was also a miniature circus train that traveled around the entire dining area on an overhead track and a decorative carousel behind the hostess station by the main entrance. 
Overall, a far less obnoxious take on the theme, in his opinion. 
He could see the bar in the back corner, by the restroom sign, but there didn’t appear to be anyone over there.  Now what was he supposed to do?
His cell phone rang again.  He started to reach for it, but was again distracted by a voice.  This time, it wasn’t his imagination. 
“What’re you doing?”
He turned to find a young boy standing in the doorway he’d just entered.  He looked to be about seven, with shaggy, blond hair and big, blue eyes.  “What?”
“What’re you doing?” the boy asked again. 
“I’m looking for someone to open the bar,” he replied. 
The boy squinted at him.  “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”
Eric frowned.  “Aren’t you a little young to be the booze police?”
He shrugged.  “I’m just saying.”
Eric chuckled.  “Right.  Well, I’m supposed to ask somebody about the soda for the party,” he explained.  “I was told there’d be someone at the bar.” 
“Oh.” 
He turned and looked around, but there was no one in sight. 
“Maybe you should check the kitchen.” 
Eric looked back at the boy.  “Kitchen?”
He pointed toward the corner of the room, to Eric’s far left. 
The layout of the room made it impossible to see that corner from where he stood, so he walked farther out into the restaurant.  Sure enough, there was a door back there.  A light was shining through the window.  That was where they’d be making the pizzas soon, if they hadn’t already started.  “Ah,” he said.  “Thanks.”
“You’ll need the key to find her.” 
He stopped and looked back at the boy, confused.  “What?”
“Not a regular key.  It’s something else.  I don’t know what, but you won’t be able to find her without it.”
Eric stared at him.  Find who?  The bartender? 
“And if you don’t find her, you can’t save them.”
This conversation was getting stranger by the second.  “Save who?”
“The children.” 
The kitchen door opened and a young, dark-haired woman stepped out into the dining room She was nicely dressed and wearing a bright-red clown nose.  As soon as she saw him standing there, she stopped, startled.  “Can I help you with something?”
He looked over at her, still puzzled.  “Uh…  Yeah.  Sorry.  I was sent to ask if they can put the soda out now.”
“Oh.”  Over her initial (and perfectly understandable) surprise at finding a grown man lurking in a dark, unopen restaurant, she relaxed and offered him a polite and professional smile.  “Of course.  I’ll get it right out.” 
“Thanks.” 
“You’re very welcome.”  She turned and vanished back into the kitchen again. 
He turned back to the boy, but he was gone.  He must’ve run back out into the arcade while the woman was talking. 
There was no one else in the room. 
The cell phone rang again.  This time he removed it from his pocket and saw that it was Isabelle. 
“Oh my god!” she yelled as soon as he lifted it to his ear.  “Answer your phone!” 
Eric cringed at the volume of her voice.  “Okay.  It’s answered.  What do you want?”
“It’s not your imagination.  Something is seriously wrong with that place!” 


***

Find out what happens on May 31!  Available at all major ebook retailers!  

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Published on May 23, 2016 20:05

It's All Fun and Games...

It's time again for another Eric Fortrell adventure!

Rushed: All Fun and Games
The sixth book in the Rushed series finds Eric facing some of his greatest fears when his wife, Karen, drags him to an eight-year-old child’s birthday party at the circus-themed family entertainment center called Bellylaugh Playland. Almost immediately, he discovers something horrifyingly amiss with the building and is hurled into a life-or-death race against the clock to save everyone from an ancient, slumbering evil. The ghostly children and temperamental décor he thinks he can handle. It’s the clowns that are really freaking him out. 
Available May 31!


Can't wait?  That's okay.  Read the first chapter right now!  My treat.



Chapter One
This was seriously going to suck.  And that was saying a lot, considering some of the massively sucky things Eric Fortrell had done in his life.  He sighed.  It was one of those big, deep sighs that he reserved for times when he had no choice but to resign himself to something he really, really didn’t want to do.  He was standing beside his silver PT Cruiser, staring at the imposing form of the building before him.  It wasn’t much to look at from the parking lot.  Blocky, mostly windowless, it kind of resembled an enormous barn, really, with its featureless, tin exterior.  It was big, but from this angle, it was perfectly unremarkable.  The horrors were all inside.  And they were substantial.  Even if he could somehow avoid going in there, there was nowhere else to go.  There was nothing else here.  Behind him was the highway, but everything else was open pastures bordered by forests, as if he were a million miles from civilization.  It was all an illusion, of course.  He was less than half a mile from the city limit sign.  Pasoken, Wisconsin and its population of twelve thousand lay just beyond that strip of woods to the west.  But he might as well be in the middle of the Sahara because whether he liked it or not, he was going to have to go in there.  And he’d put it off too long already.  He opened the Cruiser’s lift gate and stared at the huge bundle of colorful, bobbing balloons and the two huge, plastic sacks containing all the goody bags Karen and Holly had assembled the night before, each one stuffed with candy, party favors and a homemade cookie.  An eight-year-old child’s birthday party.  He’d almost rather drive back to Hedge Lake and go for another swim.    He felt a blush creep up his neck as traffic sped by on the highway.  It was silly, but things like this always made him feel extremely self-conscious.  He hated the idea of people staring at him.  It sounded weird, he knew.  He was a high school teacher, after all.  He spent all day in front of a classroom.  But somehow that was different.  They were his students.  It was supposed to be that way.  It was natural.  But the idea of complete strangers looking at him, judging him…  It was unnerving.  He didn’t even like it when he was mowing his lawn and people drove past on the street.  It was irrational, but it was real.  He couldn’t help it.  And why wouldn’t every passing driver be staring at him right now?  They couldn’t possibly miss him.  All these bright balloons were like a rainbow-colored beacon, irresistibly drawing everyone’s eyes straight to him.  He knew nobody was laughing at him.  Lots of people had their kids’ birthday parties here.  No one would give him a second thought.  Just like no one thought anything about a man mowing his lawn.  But he just couldn’t help it.  It was who he was.  Everyone deserved to have their own peculiarities, right?  (Although he supposed he might have claimed more than his fair share…)  He fumbled the lift gate closed again and started across the parking lot toward the main doors.  Four hours, he told himself.  It’s only four hours.  How bad can it possibly be for just four hours?  But he wasn’t fooling himself.  It was going to suck.  It was going to suck for four…  Long…  Hours…  He stared at the sign over the glass doors as he approached.  Bellylaugh Playland was one of those little Wisconsin treasures you sometimes read about in travel pamphlets.  A family entertainment center containing a three story, indoor playland (like the ones you found in McDonald’s restaurants all over the place, but on mega-steroids) with plenty of slides, tunnels, bridges, obstacles and climbing nets.  There was also an attached mirror maze, a large ball pit and a two story arcade.  For the grownups, there was a full restaurant and bar attached, but they weren’t open on weekends.  Back in the eighties and nineties, it was a major family attraction.  Open seven days a week, people brought their kids from all over the Midwest to eat and play.  Over the years, however, the place had aged and lost some of its charm.  Prices went up.  Visitor numbers went down.  (And the owners had grown too old to keep up with it all, he’d heard.)  Now it was only open for private events and an extremely popular all-you-can-eat Friday night fish fry.  As soon as he opened the door, his ears were accosted with the sounds of children screaming their heads off.  And most of the guests hadn’t even arrived yet.  The actual party didn’t start until eleven o’clock, more than half an hour from now.  His four hours hadn’t even begun and already he felt a dull pain beginning to blossom in his right temple.  He hoped Karen still had aspirin in her purse.  He was going to need some before this day was over.  But the children and all their noise didn’t bother him quite as much as the clown that met him as he entered the building.  Six and a half feet tall, made of plaster and in need of fresh paint, the goofy, overexcited greeter was obviously supposed to look fun and friendly.  Even his proportions were made to look silly, with too-big eyes and ears and a spindly little neck and hands that looked like Mickey Mouse gloves.  And to some, he probably did appear endearing.  (There were plenty of weirdos out there who actually liked clowns for some reason.)  But to Eric, that huge, cartoon grin was less inviting than it was hungry and menacing.  As far as he was concerned, any kid that didn’t burst into tears at the sight of that thing needed therapy.  Immediately.And it wasn’t the only creepy statue in the building.  Bellylaugh Playland was full of frightful and lifeless clowns.  They were scattered all over the place, standing against walls, leaning against posts and perched over doorways, watching the children play and eat with their huge, dull eyes.  There was even one guarding the doors to the restroom.  (Good luck making it past that abomination if you were already doing the pee dance.)  Some, like the one guarding the entrance, were freakishly tall, towering over the children and even most of the adults.  Others were comically short, only about four feet tall.  With very few exceptions, the tall ones were long and skinny and the short ones were squat and fat.  There weren’t any real clowns, thankfully.  At least, no fully-dressed, rainbow wig, baggy trousers, big shoes, horror-makeup-wearing clowns.  (Karen had assured him of that.)  But the staff here all wore those big, red clown noses all the time for some reason.  God, he hated clowns.  He always did.  Even when he was young.  They creeped him out for some reason.  He was standing on one side of the party room.  It was little more than a large, open space filled with tables and booths, surrounded by festively painted, circus themed walls and dotted with those god-awful clown statues.  From where he stood, he could see Karen putting her considerable decorating skills to work at the cake table by the far wall.  He shot the plaster bozo one last dirty look and then made his way over to his wife, careful not to pop any of the balloons on the low-hanging light fixtures overhead.  His cell phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it.  He didn’t have a free hand to answer it with.  And besides that, he didn’t even like the stupid thing.  Cell phones were annoying devices worshiped by idiotic people who couldn’t bear to remain unentertained for more than thirty seconds at a stretch.  He didn’t tolerate them in his classroom and would never have owned one if Karen hadn’t insisted that he have it in case of an emergency.  (And so that she could always reach him, of course.)  So yes, he had one of the stupid things, but that didn’t mean he used it everywhere he went.  He refused to be one of those obnoxious people in the grocery store with their phones perpetually glued to the sides of their heads.  It was no secret that he felt this way.  Anyone who actually had his number knew this, so it was probably either a wrong number or one of those damned recorded messages instructing him to call about an urgent matter with a nonexistent credit card.  (He’d been getting more of those just lately, and it annoyed the hell out of him.)  They’d leave a message.  Or they wouldn’t.  It didn’t really matter to him.  Either way, the ringing stopped. Karen was talking with two women.  One was a skinny, older blonde, the other a very short, younger brunette.  They looked enough alike to be related, mother and daughter, perhaps, or maybe even sisters.  It was hard to say for sure.  Eric didn’t recognize either of them.  He didn’t expect to.  Karen was catering this party for a friend of her mother.  Even she didn’t know anybody here.  Both women walked away as he stepped up beside her.  “Your balloons,” he said.“Finally!”  She turned and looked them over without sparing him a glance.  “What took so long?”Eric almost never lied to her.  And he didn’t this time, either.  “I didn’t want to come,” he told her.  She wasn’t amused.  The look she gave him said so in no uncertain terms.  But he met her humorless gaze without flinching.  It didn’t scare him.  On the contrary, he found that look perfectly adorable.  (She had another look that she sometimes gave him that was considerably less adorable.  It was a little bit scary.  But not this one.)  Without dropping his gaze, he lifted the plastic sacks and said, “I grabbed your goodies.”  That almost earned him a smile.  It was there for just an instant.  Not on her lips, where anyone else could see it, of course, but in her pretty, brown eyes.  She took the sacks from him without a word and immediately began arranging the goody bags on the table around the cake.  It was going to look fantastic when she was done.  It always did.  Karen had an incredible eye for detail.  He watched her for a moment, then glanced across the room at one of the creepy clown statues.  “Doesn’t this place scare the kids?”“Not everyone shares your weird clown phobia,” she told him.  “It’s not a phobia.  I just don’t like them.  There’s a difference.”“Uh huh.”  “Where do you want me to put these balloons?”“Just give them to Holly.”“Where is she?”  But as soon as he turned around she was there, already reaching out for them.  To his extreme disappointment, she was wearing clown makeup.  “Not you, too,” he said.  She stared back at him for a moment, confused.  “What?”  It wasn’t so bad, really.  It wasn’t the whole costume.  Not even the hair.  For the most part, she looked perfectly nice.  All she’d done was paint her face with a few clownish details.  Her lips were bright red, with lines extending from the corners to exaggerate her mouth.  There was a little red heart on the tip of her nose, some blue eyeshadow, little circles of pink blush on her cheeks.  And she’d drawn a number of small, swirly lines and dots beneath her eyes, exaggerating her long eyelashes and simulating little freckles on her cheekbones.  It was really well done, too.  Neat lines, smooth colors.  She actually made a damn pretty clown.  But she was a clown…  “He’s afraid of clowns,” Karen told her.  “Oh…”  She pressed one hand against her heart, as if wounded.  “I’m so sorry.”“I’m not afraid of them,” grumbled Eric, embarrassed.  “I just don’t like them.”  “What’s not to like?” asked Holly.  “Clowns are adorable.”  “Ever heard of John Wayne Gacy?”  “Oh stop,” said Karen.  “I’m just saying.”Holly took the balloons and set off to finish decorating.  As she walked away, a tall, athletic-looking woman with a deep tan and short, spiky hair walked up to the table.  “Karen, can we put the refreshments out now, or do we have to wait until eleven?”  “I think we can have them whenever we’re ready for them.  I’ll go check on it as soon as I’m done here.”Karen supplied the cake and the treats, but the kitchen was supposed to supply the pizza and soda.  She would’ve happily provided all the food and refreshments, drawing on all of her many talents in the kitchen to whip up a fantastic spread of delicious and healthy, kid-friendly snacks and her own homemade punch—sugar-free, of course—but the birthday child wanted pizza and soda.  Eric, for one, was relieved.  She was already taking this far too seriously.  A little boy, about three years old, ran over to the tall woman and seized the hem of her skirt.  He looked upset about something.  The woman bent over him, concerned.  “What’s wrong?”“I don’t like the clown!”Eric glanced over at Karen, smirking, but she was making a point of ignoring him.  “They’re just decoration, sweetie.  They’re not going to hurt you.”But the boy shook his head.  “Not them.  The one in there.”  He pointed across the floor toward the mirror maze.  “There aren’t any real clowns here,” she insisted.  “They’re all just decorations.”But the boy wouldn’t let go of her skirt.  Finally, she straightened up.  “Fine.  Let’s go see.”The little boy didn’t look too thrilled with the idea, but he allowed himself to be led away.  Eric watched them go and then glanced over at Karen again.She still didn’t look at him.  “Don’t say it,” she warned.“I’m telling you, clowns are evil.  It’s not just me.”“He’s a little boy.  I’m sure he’s afraid of lots of things.  I’d expect a little more from someone your age.”  Again, his cell phone started ringing.  Again, he ignored it.  “Doesn’t matter what age you are.  Clowns are creepy.”“Just because you think they’re creepy doesn’t mean they’re evil.”“I’m pretty sure it does.”  She rolled her eyes.  “Just stop it.  I’ve got work to do.”  “Speaking of evil...” he said, glancing over his shoulder.  “She-devils at four o’clock.”Karen glanced over to see her mother and sister walking through the door.  “Oh goody…”“Well, on the bright side, the clowns suddenly look a little less demonic.”“You be nice,” she snapped.  “Me?  I’m always nice.  You’re the one who starts all the fights.”She didn’t argue with him.  He was right, of course.  He wasn’t particularly fond of his in-laws.  He thought they were all a little stuck-up.  And he didn’t appreciate how critical they were of Karen, of course.  But they’d never been openly rude to him and he’d always remained civil to them.  “Go check on the soda,” she told him.  “See if we can have it brought out now.”He glanced around the empty party room, confused.  “Uh…where do I do that?”“At the bar.  It’s at the back of the dining room in the restaurant, right through the arcade.”She didn’t have to ask twice.  He walked away, happy for an excuse to not be present for the impending family reunion.  “Ladies,” he greeted as he walked past his in-laws.  Karen’s sister gave him an obligatory smile and a polite, “Hi,” which was about all he ever got from her.    “Good morning, Eric,” said Karen’s mother.  “How are you?”Peachy, he thought.  Aloud, he said, “I’m just fine, thank you.  Yourself?”  “Oh, I can’t complain.”  Eric smiled politely and continued on with his task without telling her that he was pretty sure she could complain.  And would.  About everything.  And poor Karen was going to have to listen to it all.  She’d always had a tense relationship with her parents.  Her older sister, Joyce, was practically perfect in every way.  (According to them, that was.)  She was thin, beautiful, popular and intelligent.  By contrast, Karen was chubby, awkward, shy and combative.  Her parents—particularly her mother—never missed an opportunity to let her know how much they wished she would be more like her sister.  As a result, she’d developed something of a mild eating disorder as a teenager, dieting to an extreme degree, eating as little as she could get away with.  And when she went off to college, more than a hundred pounds lighter than she left middle school, she rebelled in a big way.  Ironically, she and Eric met for the first time when she picked him up with the intention of having her first one-night stand.  They’d been together ever since.  She no longer worried about her weight.  She redirected her energy and cultivated her skills in the kitchen.  Instead of starving herself, she began making much healthier choices in her cooking and was much happier with herself in spite of gaining back some of that much-hated weight.  And he couldn’t possibly love her more.  As far as he was concerned, she was perfectly flawless.  (And for the record, he’d have picked her over her stuck-up, fake older sister any day.)  These days, Karen didn’t live under Joyce’s shadow or her parents’ scrutiny.  But those relationships remained strained, especially when it came to her mother.  She still felt compelled to prove herself.  So when Blanche Dashton called her daughter to ask if she’d plan and cater a birthday party for her friend’s grandchild, Karen took it as a challenge.  And that was how Eric ended up here.  He crossed the floor, pausing only to let three hyper boys run across his path, shouting at each other that the zombies were right behind them.  (What was everybody’s deal with zombies, anyway?)  Once the boys had run off again in search of a safe place to ride out the apocalypse, he continued on into the arcade.   From here, the screaming from the playland was a little more muffled, but now he was surrounded by loud, overlapping music and muffled, recorded voices from the dozens of brightly lit arcade machines that were all continuously competing for everyone’s attention.  It was difficult to decide which was worse.  His cell phone rang again.  Who the hell kept calling him?  Nobody ever called him.  He reached into his pocket to look at the number, but before he could pull it out, he was distracted by the sound of someone calling his name.  He turned and looked around.  There were a couple kids playing with the machines.  Not playing the machines, but playing with them.  They didn’t seem to have any money to actually play a game, so they were just sitting behind the steering wheels of a racing game, pretending to play.  They weren’t paying any attention to him.  And there was no one else there.  On the far side of the room, he could see a very bored-looking college-age kid standing behind the prize counter, playing with his cell phone and wearing one of those stupid clown noses.  (He had no idea how they could stand wearing those all day.  It’d drive him nuts.)It must’ve been his imagination.  A random recording from one of the machines that he misheard.  Maybe there was a character named Eric in one of the games.  He continued on, but quickly stopped again and turned to stare at a game screen next to him.  It was some kind of zombie shooter.  (Them again?)  It was playing a demo of a scene in a dark hallway.  But for a second there, in the corner of his eye as he walked by, it’d looked all wrong somehow.  It wasn’t a crisp, colorful image like the one he was seeing now.  It was grainy, distorted, more like a weak video feed.  It was probably just a part of the game.  Maybe a creepy title screen of some sort.  But for that one, brief moment it had struck him as incredibly unsettling.  As crazy as it sounded, it seemed like something was staring out at him from that screen…  His imagination.  It was probably those stupid clowns.  They made everything a million times creepier.  He continued on through the arcade, past the doors on the far side and into the restaurant.  There were windows here, on the far side of the room, but the blinds were all closed.  The lights were out.  The dining area was dark and uninviting.  And yet the atmosphere here was considerably nicer than in the rest of the building.  It still maintained the circus theme, but in a classier, more nostalgic way.  There were vintage circus posters hung on the walls, along with all manner of antique carnival memorabilia and countless photographs of acrobats and elephant trainers, circus tents and Ferris wheels, midways and clowns.  There was also a miniature circus train that traveled around the entire dining area on an overhead track and a decorative carousel behind the hostess station by the main entrance.  Overall, a far less obnoxious take on the theme, in his opinion.  He could see the bar in the back corner, by the restroom sign, but there didn’t appear to be anyone over there.  Now what was he supposed to do?His cell phone rang again.  He started to reach for it, but was again distracted by a voice.  This time, it wasn’t his imagination.  “What’re you doing?”He turned to find a young boy standing in the doorway he’d just entered.  He looked to be about seven, with shaggy, blond hair and big, blue eyes.  “What?”“What’re you doing?” the boy asked again.  “I’m looking for someone to open the bar,” he replied.  The boy squinted at him.  “Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”Eric frowned.  “Aren’t you a little young to be the booze police?”He shrugged.  “I’m just saying.”Eric chuckled.  “Right.  Well, I’m supposed to ask somebody about the soda for the party,” he explained.  “I was told there’d be someone at the bar.”  “Oh.”  He turned and looked around, but there was no one in sight.  “Maybe you should check the kitchen.”  Eric looked back at the boy.  “Kitchen?”He pointed toward the corner of the room, to Eric’s far left.  The layout of the room made it impossible to see that corner from where he stood, so he walked farther out into the restaurant.  Sure enough, there was a door back there.  A light was shining through the window.  That was where they’d be making the pizzas soon, if they hadn’t already started.  “Ah,” he said.  “Thanks.”“You’ll need the key to find her.”  He stopped and looked back at the boy, confused.  “What?”“Not a regular key.  It’s something else.  I don’t know what, but you won’t be able to find her without it.”Eric stared at him.  Find who?  The bartender?  “And if you don’t find her, you can’t save them.”This conversation was getting stranger by the second.  “Save who?”“The children.”  The kitchen door opened and a young, dark-haired woman stepped out into the dining room She was nicely dressed and wearing a bright-red clown nose.  As soon as she saw him standing there, she stopped, startled.  “Can I help you with something?”He looked over at her, still puzzled.  “Uh…  Yeah.  Sorry.  I was sent to ask if they can put the soda out now.”“Oh.”  Over her initial (and perfectly understandable) surprise at finding a grown man lurking in a dark, unopen restaurant, she relaxed and offered him a polite and professional smile.  “Of course.  I’ll get it right out.”  “Thanks.”  “You’re very welcome.”  She turned and vanished back into the kitchen again.  He turned back to the boy, but he was gone.  He must’ve run back out into the arcade while the woman was talking.  There was no one else in the room.  The cell phone rang again.  This time he removed it from his pocket and saw that it was Isabelle.  “Oh my god!” she yelled as soon as he lifted it to his ear.  “Answer your phone!”  Eric cringed at the volume of her voice.  “Okay.  It’s answered.  What do you want?”“It’s not your imagination.  Something is seriously wrong with that place!” 
***
Find out what happens on May 31!  Available at all major ebook retailers!  
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Published on May 23, 2016 20:05