Thick fog rolled in across the paved walkway. The high whine of a chainsaw coupled with insane laughter cut through the screams. Zombies approached us with outstretched arms.
I yawned.
There’s something about fighting real monsters for months that puts things in perspective for you. My brother Aiden on the other hand was wide-eyed and full of nervous giggles, on the verge of freaking out.
Entire sections of the theme park were transformed into giant haunted houses. But I just wanted to ride the roller coasters. It was weird. Living in a city that has a theme park, you’d think we’d be here every weekend. But Six Flags Vallejo was the poor man’s Disneyland. It didn’t hold a candle to mouseworld, and it showed. Everything from the overpriced water bottles, the no-outside-food policy, along with lackluster teenage employees more inclined to flirt with one another than do their jobs. Terrible. Once the allure of the rides and the animals wore off, it was just another money sucking corporation, and one that did not even try to hide it.
The only thing they had going for them was that the park was formerly a zoo of sorts that had been bought out by Six Flags. So now it doubled as a zoo and an amusement park. And there weren’t too many places in the world were you could see a live tiger, get strapped into a gravity-defying ride, then eat cotton candy while watching dolphins jump through hoops in a choreographed show.
We rode a few coasters as a group, but Aiden would not shut up about bumper cars.
“Those give me whiplash,” I said. “I’ll pass on the headache.”
“Me too,” said Gavin.
“Okay,” said Mom, “let’s split up. Meet you back at the dolphin fountain in a little bit?”
“Sounds good. I could go for some grub anyways.”
“We just ate,” said Mom.
“I’m actually hungry too,” said Gavin.
“Growing boys,” said Nancy to mom. “Good thing these two young men are out of the house now. They’d eat your savings away.”
Nancy, Mom, and Aiden went off to the bumper cars. Charice, Gavin and I left to look for something to eat at the food court. Along the way we passed through low lit sections of the park infested with bleeding zombies, clowns with hacksaws, and moaning mummies. Thank goodness there were no vampires. I was so over vampires. I powered through unphased, but Charice squealed a few times when the actors jumped at us.
“Really?” I asked her. “After all we’ve been through?”
“I don’t do jump-scares. They get me every time.”
The food court rested at the edge of the lake surrounding the park. A bunch of old school fair-type games congregated in the walkway, enticing passersby to play. Games like knocking a pyramid of metal bottles down with a ball, ring toss, or basketball shots.
“Sean, you’ve got to win me that big teddy bear,” said Charice.
“It’s such a rip off,” I said.
She tugged my arm, pulling me close to her. “Please, Seanny. For your girlfriend.”
I hated it when anyone else called me Seanny, but I liked the way she said it. When I looked into my girlfriend’s beautiful round eyes, I could not say no.
“Fine.”
She giggled. I was determined not to disappoint her.
Gavin rolled his eyes. “I’m getting a hot dog.” He walked off a little ways.
I paid for the ring toss game. I had three chances. The rings bounced like marbles on cement. I blew every single toss, and my cash.
“Aww, that’s okay Sean,” said Charice.
“Not good enough,” I said. “I got this.”
I handed the guy more cash and he gave me three more rings.
I missed the first two on purpose, but the last toss, I summoned my Good Luck. The ring flew true and landed perfectly around a spoke.
“Yes.” I fist pumped and hugged Charice. “We’ll take the big teddy bear.”
The guy looked flabbergasted, like no one was supposed to win the game ever, but handed us the bear anyways.
“You know babe, I’m feeling strong. Let’s try all these games.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
She hit my arm. “You cheated didn’t you?”
I shrugged. “These games are all rigged. I just evened the odds. Now, let’s take ‘em for all their worth.”
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“That’s not right Sean.”
“What’s not right?” asked Gavin with a mouthful of hot dog.
“Sean wants to use his Good Luck to beat all these games.”
“Ha,” said Gavin. “Awesome. Do it.”
Charice looked shocked. “I can’t believe you two.”
Gavin shrugged. “He’s still gotta pay for every game you two play anyways.”
I clapped my hands together and scoped out the next game. Sinking nothing-but-nets in the basketball challenge looked fun and started towards it.
But then my Keening flared.
I turned to Charice who gave me that look. She was becoming more entuned with the supernatural. Gavin too.
“No. Not here. Not now.” Hundreds of thoughts raced through my head. Most of them revolving around the terrible irony of a monster attack during a Halloween-themed night at an amusement park. It was the perfect time to attack unsuspecting civilians, congregated together in one place, expecting to get scared, welcoming it even, only to be consumed by real monsters in return for their ignorance.
But I’ll be honest. There were only three people I really cared about. “We’ve got to find Mom, Aiden, and Nancy.”
“They could be anywhere by now,” said Gavin. He pulled out his cell phone. “Signal’s gone.”’
A cold wall of mist marched towards us from the Dan Foley park lake that sprawled around the park. From my experience, the mist meant a temporary opening to the Otherside had appeared. My Keening had never pulsed so hard. There was more than one monster out there in the ethereal wisps.
“The lake literally surrounds three fourths of the park,” I said.
“The monsters could come from any angle,” said Charice.
I eyed my girlfriend. “You can fly. Go over towards the bumper cars and see if you can find my family.”
“How will I find you once I get them?”
“Don’t bring them back to us,” I said. “And don’t go back to the car either. Everyone will be trying to do that. It’ll be a traffic jam. Head towards the Hilton across the street. We’ll meet you there. Our cell phones should work the closer we get to the hotel and away from the mist.”
Charice nodded. Wings made entirely of amethyst magic sprouted from her back. She took to the skies. Some people witnessed it with amazed looks plastered on their faces. Didn’t matter. They might die with those looks on their faces too if my brother and I didn’t step up to the plate.
“What are we going to do?” asked Gavin.
Hoof beats thundered, like four gavels falling, pronouncing judgment on us. I’d heard that horse one too many times to know who sat headless upon the muscular midnight black steed.
“The Dullahan,” I whispered.
I reached for my back instinctively but instead of grasping the hilt of either Jade or Fragarach my fingers clutched thin air.
“Ah crap.”
Gavin backhanded my chest. “The jacket dummy. Out with them.”
Oh duh. Iarfhlaith’s leather jacket of holding hugged my torso. Without it I never would have gotten my weapons past the metal detector. It felt so natural to wear that I’d forgotten two swords were in its magical depths at my disposal.
I reached through the impossible inside of my leather jacket and found Jade first. I tossed her to Gavin. Then I retrieved Fragarach for myself.
“Guns too?”
I shook my head. “As silly as it sounds, I didn’t completely trust this jacket yet. Didn’t want to store all my eggs in one basket.”
Gavin shook his head. “That’s literally the point of the jacket. Dummy.”
“Hey, I didn’t know this would happen.”
The Dullahan’s horse pranced forward from the wall of mist. Even hundreds of feet away from us, I knew it was him, the way he cradled his skull tucked under his armpit.
Between us and him were hundreds of people, both employees pretending to be monsters, and casual park goers. Oohs, ahhs, and wows fell from the mouths of people awed by the Dullahan, like the bleats of lambs about to be sacrificed to Chaos.
Gavin and I exchanged a look, then rushed into the crowd trying to meet the enemy head on as fast as we could. But given the circumstances, no one gave any heed to two brothers wielding actual swords. For all they knew we were part of the festivities. Instead of parting out of our way, the crowd closed in as more attention was drawn to the headless horseman who emerged from the mist. And after a few moments I saw why.
At the Dullahan’s back, monsters of every kind slithered, crawled, or fluttered into view as they broke free of the mist separating our world from the Between and ultimately the Otherside.
Sleek Dobhar-chus skittered across the ground. Merrow fishmen exposed dripping parana fangs. On the tops of the food court restaurants Sluagh perched with spread wings, eyeing the crowd for easy pickin’s. Three pale women rode on the backs of three of the Sluagh. Banshees. And with the need to complete a threefold death for each one, it was really like we were up against nine Banshees.
A chorus of wailing cut through the barks, hisses, and caws. Humanoid bodies lurched forward with determined steps. Their bodies were so emaciated they looked like what zombies turned into if they were mixed with mummies.
Shivers trailed down my back, to my hands. I shoved past a group of middle school teenagers. “Oh crap. Move.”
“What the heck are those?” asked Gavin, stiff arming a college couple to keep up with me.
“Fear Gortcha,” I barked. “Souls that died of starvation during times of famine. They carry on, eternally hungry and never satisfied.”
“At least they’re too decrepit to do any real harm.”
“Don’t let their twig bones and shriveled flesh fool you,” I warned him. “They are strong enough to take a full quiver of arrows and keep walking. So the Celtic legends say.”
“Just what we need. Starving Irish zombies.”
The wary crowd of park goers got over their immediate fright and disregarded their internal sense of caution. Many of them proceeded to draw near to the warped creatures of Chaos. This was what they paid for after all. To be frightened.
Gavin and I screamed, warning the crowd to flee.
People looked our way, blinked, then laughed and carried on.
“Six Flags stepped up their game this year,” yelled one heavyset white guy. “Frightfest is awesome.”
The Dullahan’s empty eye sockets whipped from us to the heavyset guy nearing him. The monsters seemed to be waiting for his command.
He uttered one breathy word through his decapitated toothy skull.
“Feed.”