Once the remaining werewolves had scrammed and we’d tended to our wounds with Health Potions, Annalise, Snuggles, and I looted the corpses of the dead wolves. Snuggles scored a letterman jacket that shrunk to fit his smaller form, and which gave him protection against melee damage and some other stuff. Annalise and I didn’t get much of value, except for some neon fangs we could use for crafting apparently, and some swatches of coarse fur that shimmered and changed color like mood rings.
Although on one of the corpses, I did manage to snag a snazzy pair of shades.
Howler Shades
Put them on and not only will you look like an 80s wrestler, but you’ll also gain infrared vision so you can see in the dark! Handy for when you get trapped in a dungeon and you want to see what’s coming to kill you.
Nice, I thought, pocketing the shades. Should come in handy at some point.
“Everyone good to go?” I said.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Annalise said. “Though I’ll be needing new pants after those bastards shredded mine.”
“They still look cool on you. Fashionably ripped.”
She gave me a look. “Yeah, because it’s all about the fashion in this place, isn’t it?”
“You’re forgetting we’re being watched by trillions of people.”
“I try not to think about that.”
“Hey, Annalise,” Snuggles said, his fur more crimson than blue now. “You should get one of those skimpy outfits that those warrior women wear. You know, like the ones on the covers of all those dime store fantasy novels? That would make you a real hit with the viewers.”
“I’ll be sure to do that,” she said. “Just as soon as Kade starts walking around in nothing but that yellow jockstrap and you put on a tiny cheerleader outfit to match that letterman jacket of yours. Complete with pom-poms and a little skirt. I’m sure that would be a real hit with the viewers too.”
“Damn, girl, don’t tempt me.” He suddenly broke into a cheer, dancing along with it. “Give me an I! Give me an N! Give me an F-E-R-N-U-M! What’s that spell? Certain doom!” Snuggles shook his little plush bottom and waved imaginary pom-poms. “Gooo team! Let’s all die horribly for the entertainment of the cosmic horrors!”
His performance was so unexpected and absurd that I couldn’t help but burst out laughing, despite the pain from my wounds and the general grimness of our situation. Even Annalise cracked a smile, shaking her head in disbelief.
“You’re incorrigible, you know that?” she said to Snuggles, but there was a hint of fondness in her voice.
“Hey, if we’re gonna be stuck in this nightmare, might as well embrace the madness,” Snuggles replied with a wink. “Now, shall we get moving before more neon beasties decide to make us their chew toys?”
As it turned out, we didn’t get very far before something happened that I’d been dreading since I saved Annalise from certain death.
The air suddenly grew thick with the sickly-sweet scent of cotton candy, mingling with the metallic tang of blood still lingering from our battle with the werewolves. My blood froze in my veins as the landscape around us began to warp and twist, reality bending like a funhouse mirror gone mad.
Neon lights blazed to life, painting the desolate wasteland in garish hues of pink, green, and electric blue. The ground beneath our feet transformed into uneven, striped canvas, undulating like the surface of a troubled sea. Carnival music erupted from nowhere and everywhere, a cacophony of calliope and off-key carousel melodies that set my teeth on edge.
“What the hell?” Annalise gasped, her eyes wide with shock and growing fear. “That smell. Is that—”
Before I could respond, we suddenly found ourselves smack in the middle of that twisted carnival again, as if we’d never left it.
Then a voice slithered out on the air from inside the big top, a voice that made me shudder in fear.
“Well, well, well,” it singsonged, dripping with malevolent glee. “Guess whose luck just ran out.”
A figure stepped out of the big top, a figure with a face I never wanted to see again after the last time. But there it was, grinning manically.
He stood, materializing from a swirl of cotton candy like some nightmarish apparition. Herbie Floss, the Cotton Candy Killer, his eyes gleaming with murderous delight and his hair writhing like a mass of living sugar strands.
“Miss me, kiddos?” Herbie’s grin stretched impossibly wide, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth stained pink with candy… or blood. “Because I sure missed you. Especially you, Kade. We’ve got some unfinished business, you and I.” He glared at me with murderous intent. “You blew up my machine, you stinking grease monkey! And now you’re going to pay for that. You’re going to pay dearly, Kade. Dearly indeed!”
Flanking Herbie was a troupe of clowns—if you could still call them that. Their faces were twisted masks of agony, painted smiles stretching their scarred cheeks to the breaking point. Limbs bent at unnatural angles, as if they’d been broken and reset wrong. Their eyes... God, their eyes were vacant, glassy orbs that reflected only pain and slavish devotion to their master.
To Herbie’s right stood an army of plush toys, but these were no cuddly companions. Teddy bears with razor-blade claws, dollies with porcelain faces cracked to reveal gnashing metal teeth, toy soldiers armed with very real—and very sharp—bayonets. All of them bore the scars of Herbie’s “lesson,” stuffing poking through stitched wounds, limbs crudely reattached, dead button eyes gleaming with a hunger for vengeance.
“Like my new friends?” Herbie cackled, running a hand through his writhing hair. “They thought they could stand against me. Silly things. But I showed them the error of their ways, didn’t I, my pretties?”
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The clowns and toys responded with a chorus of pained moans and creaking joints that chilled me to my core.
“My friends,” Snuggles whispered on my shoulder as he stared at the plushies and clowns surrounding Floss. “What has he done to them?”
“Now,” Herbie continued, his voice dropping to a menacing growl, “about that little stunt you pulled with my beautiful machine...”
I felt Annalise tense beside me, tonfa gripped tight in her hand. Snuggles let out a low growl. “I fucking hate you, Floss,” he said with as much venom as I’d ever heard in his voice. “You know what you’ve always reminded me off? Those guys in the jungle who lose their shit and then turn into complete psychos, walking around with necklaces made of ears or fingers, reveling in the sick carnage they cause.”
“I don’t think you should be saying shit like that, Snuggles,” I whispered tensely.
“Take a look around my little blue friend,” Floss said. “We’re not exactly in Kansas anymore, are we? I just adapted to the environment. And let’s not forget, Snuggles, that you and you’re former friends here helped secure many a victim for me. You ushered all those pathetic souls to their death, directing them toward my infernal machine, isn’t that right?”
As Floss laughed, Snuggles seemed to shrink in shame on my shoulder. But there was no time to be feeling sorry, not when we were about to get killed.
“Kade,” Annalise whispered urgently, “we need to run. Now.”
But before we could move, Herbie’s hair shot out like a mass of tentacles, whipping through the air with lightning speed. I ducked, feeling the rush of air as sugar strands whistled past my ear. Annalise wasn’t so lucky. A tendril wrapped around her ankle, yanking her off her feet with a startled cry.
“Annalise!” I shouted, lunging for her outstretched hand. Our fingers brushed for a split second before she was dragged away, the ground beneath her leaving a trail of pink sugar crystals.
“Now, now,” Herbie tutted, reeling Annalise in like a fish on a line. “No need to be rude. The party’s just getting started!”
I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding in my ears. Snuggles darted forward, his tiny sword flashing as he hacked at the sugar tendril holding Annalise. But for every strand he severed, two more took its place.
“Snuggles, look out!” I yelled, spotting movement from the corner of my eye. A bear plushie, its fur matted with what looked horribly like dried blood, lunged for Snuggles with a roar that no stuffed toy should be capable of making.
Snuggles pivoted, bringing his sword up in a desperate arc. The blade connected, slicing clean through the bear’s middle. But instead of stuffing, a spray of crimson cotton candy erupted from the wound, coating Snuggles in a sticky, blood-red mess.
“What the fu—” Snuggles’ exclamation was cut short as the bear’s severed halves reformed, the wound sealing with a sickening squelch of sugar and stuffing.
Meanwhile, I was facing my own nightmares. The clowns advanced, their broken bodies moving with a jerky, unnatural gait. Their painted smiles stretched wider, jaws unhinging to reveal maws filled with jagged candy canes instead of teeth.
I swung my nunchaku in a wide arc, connecting with the nearest clown’s head. The impact should have caved in its skull. Instead, its head simply compressed like a wad of gum, then snapped back into shape with a sound like cracking knuckles.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, backing away as the clowns pressed closer. My eyes darted frantically between the advancing horde and Annalise, who was now dangling upside down before a gloating Herbie Floss.
“Let her go, you psychotic sugar puff!” I shouted, desperation clawing at my throat.
Herbie’s laugh was like breaking glass, sharp and cutting. “Oh, I don’t think so, Kade my boy. You see, I owe you for what you did to my precious machine. And I always repay my debts... with interest.”
With a flick of his wrist, Herbie sent Annalise flying. She slammed into what looked like a cotton candy stand, but as she hit, the fluffy pink exterior parted like teeth, clamping down around her with a sickening crunch.
“No!” I screamed, surging forward. But the clowns were on me in an instant, their candy cane teeth snapping inches from my face as I fought them off.
Snuggles was a whirlwind of blue fur and flashing steel, but for every plush monstrosity he cut down, three more took its place. “Kade!” he yelled over the chaos. “We can’t win this! We need to—”
His words were drowned out by a sound that turned my blood to ice—the whir of machinery coming to life. I looked up to see a massive, horrific contraption rising from the ground behind Herbie. It was his candy floss machine, rebuilt and more terrifying than ever. Pipes and tubes writhed like intestines, steam hissing from joints that pulsed like arteries. At its heart was a spinning chamber that glowed with unholy light.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Herbie crooned, stroking the machine lovingly. “And hungry. Oh so hungry. But don’t worry, little Snuggles here will make a perfect first course!”
Before I could react, a mass of sugar strands shot out, enveloping Snuggles in a cocoon of sticky pink threads. He thrashed and shouted, his words muffled as he was lifted toward the machine’s gaping maw.
“No! Snuggles!” I yelled, fighting with renewed desperation against the press of clowns and demonic toys. But there were too many, their hands grabbing at me, pulling me down into a sea of twisted cotton and painted faces.
I caught one last glimpse at Snuggles, his button eyes wide with terror, before he disappeared into the machine’s spinning chamber. Herbie’s laughter rose to a manic crescendo, drowning out the carnival music, drowning out my own screams of rage and despair.
“Don’t worry, Kade,” Herbie’s voice cut through the chaos like a knife. “Snuggles is just going for a little spin of a while. I’m not going to kill him just yet. Not until he’s suffered, just as you will soon enough. But first, I want you to watch. I want you to see what happens when you cross Herbie Floss. I want you to understand the true meaning of sugar-coated suffering!”
The world spun around me, a kaleidoscope of neon and nightmare. I fought with everything I had, my muscles screaming, my lungs burning. But it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
As darkness began to creep in at the edges of my vision, one thought pounded through my mind like a mantra, like a prayer to whatever twisted gods ruled this place.
I have to save them. I have to save them.
But as Herbie’s shadow loomed over me, his grin stretching wider than any human mouth should be able to, I feared it was already too late.
“Kade,” he said, considering me for a moment, strands of glossy sugar dripping from his pointed teeth. “I’m going to teach your friends the meaning of suffering, and then I’m going to make them a part of my carnival forever. But you? Oh, you’re going to wish I’d killed you right here and now.”
Herbie leaned in close, his breath a sickening mix of cotton candy and decay. “I’m not going to kill you yet, sport. That would be too easy, too kind. No, I want you to see what your foolish actions have brought upon your friends.”
His eyes glinted with malevolent glee as he grabbed my jaw, forcing it open. “Here’s a little taste of what’s to come, kiddo.”
Thick, syrupy sugar oozed from his teeth, dripping into my mouth. The taste was vile, acrid, and burning—nothing like sugar should be. It seared down my throat, spreading a sickening warmth through my body.
“There we go,” Herbie crooned, his voice dropping to a sinister whisper. “Now we’re connected, you and I. Every scream, every whimper, every delicious moment of agony your friends endure—you’ll feel it all. You’ll see it all. And the best part?” His grin widened impossibly further. “You’ll feel my pleasure as I twist the knife.”
He stepped back, spreading his arms wide as the carnival began to shimmer and fade around us. “I’ll be seeing you real soon, Kade. Or should I say, you’ll be seeing me real soon, causing your meddling friends the untold pain and agony they both deserve, and it will all be your fault.”
As I stared up in horror, the carnival dissolved into mist around me, taking Annalise and Snuggles with it. Herbie’s laughter echoed in my ears as darkness closed in, leaving me alone with the horrifying knowledge of what was to come.