Deep Trouble Read online

  I rolled up the chicken wire with the zombies inside like a metal-and-rotted-corpse burrito. Then I pushed a small utility boat out of the weeds on the edge of the lake and tied a rope to the wire bundle. I fastened it to the back of the boat and pushed off, waiting until I got into deep enough water to start the engine. High-powered motors aren’t permitted on Lake Wilhelm—it’s too shallow—but neither is shooting your dead ancestors, so in for a penny, in for a pound as my granny used to say.

  I put-putted out from shore, hauling the zombies behind me. All I needed to do was get them far enough out that they wouldn’t show up if we had a drought and the water levels fell, exposing the lake bottom near the water’s edge.

  When I was far enough out that I thought it was safe, I lifted the engine and started to saw through the rope with my knife. Just as the rope parted, a decaying arm broke the surface of the water, and one last straggler started to pull himself on board.

  “Oh hell, no!” I said, and swung my knife, slicing through the zombie’s rotted neck. His head fell back into the water with a plop, but the body held on to the back of the boat, immobile. I sat down on the boat’s seat and kicked with both feet, knocking the headless body free. Just for good measure, I dropped the engine and revved it until I saw chum in the water. If the Game Commission still stocked the lake with walleye and muskie, there would be some prize winning fish once the season opened.

  I just wouldn’t be eating any.

  Chapter 4

  I used to think “tulpa” was a city in Oklahoma. It’s not.

  Tulpas are dream-creatures, or at least, they take form from people’s dreams and nightmares, and from the stories we tell each other. They get their power from our beliefs and fears, and once they’re real, they hunt.

  And just my fuckin’ luck, we had an honest-to-God tulpa, right here in River City. Or rather, Conneaut Lake.

  I parked my car at the end of an overgrown gravel lane, just over a rise from busy Route 322. If I walked to the top of the hill and looked across the highway, I’d see my favorite soft custard stand. Unfortunately, I didn’t come for ice cream tonight.

  After I had pulled my gear bag out of the truck, grabbed my shotgun, and stuck my Glock in the waistband of my jeans, I stood by the front of my truck and got my bearings. Off to the right lay a crumbling castle, while to the left, I saw a giant lace-up shoe the size of a minivan. Straight ahead, a dilapidated pirate ship listed in a brackish pond. Beyond them, I knew, lay a Minotaur maze, a wall with a huge cracked egg, and a pumpkin prison. And somewhere among the ruins, a monster lurked.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out and answered. “Whatcha got?”

  “I hacked a satellite feed,” Chiara replied. “Not showing people or large wildlife in the target area. So, whatever you encounter, it’s the tulpa.”

  “Good to know. What else?”

  “If you don’t check in with us in two hours, Blair’s coming after you.”

  “If I don’t check in, stay the fuck away,” I warned. “I mean it. Or send in an army. But don’t send her after me.”

  “Sorry,” Chiara replied, and I could almost hear her shrug. “Nobody tells Blair what to do. Have you met her?” She snorted. “Not even my ‘feminine wiles’ dissuade that girl when she makes up her mind.”

  I doubted that, but sometimes even I know when to keep my mouth shut. “Just be smart about it,” I grumbled, knowing when I was beat. “I’m going in.”

  “Remember what I told you,” she warned.

  “Gonna do my best,” I said. “See you on the other side.”

  I slipped my phone back into a secure pocket in my gear vest and loaded some rock-salt-filled shells into the shotgun. I’d never seen myself as Prince Charming, but here I was, about to storm the castle and kill the monster.

  I headed out, stepping over the remains of a big faux-stone archway that had once proudly proclaimed the entrance to Wonderama.

  As amusement parks went, Wonderama had been unlucky from the start. I don’t know what gave its founder the notion that competing with the venerable Conneaut Lake Park and Fairyland Forest was a smart idea, not when those parks had been thriving for half a century, and Wonderama was less than twenty miles away.

  Bad luck dogged the place. One of the workers died in a freak accident when the park was being built. An attendant was mortally injured when one of the ride cars tipped off the rails. A small boy drowned in Pirate Lake. Rumors started to circulate that it was built on an ancient Native American burial ground, or a potters’ field, or the graveyard of a deconsecrated church. A few gossips suggested that the owners had made a deal with the devil, but if they did, they were damn poor negotiators because they sure didn’t get much out of it.

  Still, Wonderama might have survived on account of being something new and having a prime location by the ice cream stand, if it hadn’t been for the highway construction. That first crucial summer, before the tourist season had begun, the cones and barriers went up, rerouting traffic and making the trek not worth the bother. The ice cream stand survived. Wonderama didn’t.

  In the decades since Wonderama closed its gates for good, the park sat empty, tied up in legal wrangling. Every now and then a rumor surfaced about a potential buyer, but it always fell through. The original owner had financial difficulties, and one personal tragedy after another befell the subsequent administrators, leading to whispers about a curse. Locals told stories about strange things going on, as thrill-seekers and vandals explored the grounds, which had been left to decay.

  I’d heard those stories, about mysterious “fairy lights” and glowing orbs, scary shadow creatures and unearthly noises, and carousel music playing in the middle of the night. Lots of stuff around here is haunted, but it doesn’t become my problem until people start getting hurt. Then a couple of people went missing, and a few bodies turned up with really unusual fatal wounds, and the whole steaming mess landed squarely in my lap.

  Chiara and I had managed to find an old map of the doomed fairytale park and squared it up against Google Earth. That gave me the lay of the land, so I knew where I was when navigating from Mother Goose World to Fairy Woodland to Enchanted Forest and Gumdrop Dreams Kingdom. We had also pieced together the stories told by the frightened trespassers who survived their adventure, as well as the police reports of where the bodies had been found to give me a fair idea of where the tulpa would show up.

  That didn’t mean I really had any idea of what I was going up against. Just a guesstimate of where it might be lurking.

  Moonlight gave me enough light to see, although I had flashlights and a lantern in my bag. Even after all this time, the main landmarks were recognizable despite the effects of weather and neglect. I decided to save the castle for last since it was the largest building, maybe the size of a ranch house. That also worked well since the castle was at the back of the park, and I’d have to pass the other attractions on my way in.

  In daylight, if the grounds were tidy and happy music played through the overhead speakers, Wonderama could have been charming. In the dark, overgrown and fallen into disrepair, it was scary as all hell. I don’t know who got the bright idea of reading fairy tales to children because those stories are dark as fuck, full of monsters and wicked queens and hungry wolves that eat people. And now, thanks to all the negative energy in the park’s troubled past, those monsters were coming to life.

  I headed for the huge shoe. The colorful old map showed the old woman’s shoe as an orange lace-up boot. To me, it looked more like a high-top sneaker, but maybe the builder did the best he could. Windows opened on the sides of the shoe to let light in, and I could imagine cheery gingham curtains fluttering in the breeze. Once upon a time, the inside had probably looked like a Smurf cottage, with cutesy miniature furniture. Now, the windows and door were dark sockets, the brightly colored walls were peeling and streaked with mold, and dead leaves stirred in the cold wind, coming to a halt against the transom.

  “Come out, come out
, wherever you are,” I murmured, raising my shotgun and pointing it at the empty doorway. I sensed more than saw movement as a shadow grew solid. But the creature that stepped into the moonlight was a hag, not a grandma, more Baba Yaga than bubbe. Filthy, matted gray hair hung in dreads around a wizened face. The hunched figure wore a stained apron over a tattered dress, and her bony arms and long-fingered, gnarled hands were dark with blood as if she’d just come from slaughtering dinner. Cunning eyes sized me up, and her thin lips curled into a malicious smile, baring sharp teeth.

  There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children; she didn’t know what to do.

  So she ate them.

  The old woman snarled, then sprang for me, clawed hands outstretched. I fired, right for granny’s head. The shot hit, dead on, and the figure vanished as the shell impacted with the concrete wall of the old shoe and scattered rock salt all over. The tulpa wasn’t gone—my luck wasn’t that good—but I’d sent it packing for a little while. I kept the shotgun handy as I reached for a jug of holy water from my bag as well as a bundle of sage and a lighter.

  I splashed the threshold with holy water, then lit the sage and tossed it inside, where its cleansing smoke would fill the structure. Just in case, I recited the banishment litany Father Leo made me memorize. Nothing around me stirred. I took that as a good sign, grabbed my gear, and headed deeper into the ruins of a once-magical kingdom.

  The rusted remains of a Tilt-A-Whirl hunkered beneath trees that had grown up through its railings. A little farther and I could see the undulating track of a caterpillar coaster poking up through tall brush like the spine of a dragon. The cars waited at the ride entrance for visitors that would never come again. Despite the years of neglect, I could still make out the smiling face on the lead car, although now it looked maniacal instead of friendly.

  I paused at the Tilt-A-Whirl since it was the ride that had a documented fatality. Billy Kester, age ten. If other people had gotten hurt at the park, it hadn’t been reported. Given that Wonderama didn’t stay open for very long, I doubted it had the time or enough attendance to rack up a body count, at least, before the tulpa came into being.

  I don’t do magic, and I don’t have any special talent for seeing ghosts. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing in my line of work is up for debate. But Father Leo has shown me a trick or two about sending on spirits that are confused about being dead or just not sure how to move on. Vengeful ghosts or ones who are sticking around for a purpose are a whole different kettle of fish, and I leave those to the professionals.

  The old ride’s shell-shaped cars were rusted in place, no longer crazily swinging in circles. Despite the situation, I smiled at memories of throwing myself from side to side to make the cart spin when my brother and I rode rides like it at the fair long ago. Maybe if the ghost hadn’t moved on, he or she just wasn’t ready to go home yet after a day at the park.

  “It’s okay to let go,” I said to empty air, keeping my shotgun handy in case the tulpa showed up again. If there were ghosts here, then they helped strengthen and anchor the tulpa, so getting the spirits to leave should weaken the tulpa’s hold.

  “The park is closed now,” I said, feeling a little silly since no one was in sight. “It won’t ever open. The fun is over. It’s time for you to rest.”

  I was about to give up and just lay down some salt, holy water, and sage when a shimmer in the air caught my attention. As I watched, the figure of a boy who looked to be about ten years old gradually became clearer. He wore shorts, a striped shirt, and a pair of Keds, and I wondered why he had stayed here for so long, all by himself. Then a thought came to me, and I ran with it.

  “Did your mom tell you to stay right here?” I asked gently. Billy hesitated—he’d probably been told not to talk to strangers—and then nodded shyly.

  “Your mom went on ahead,” I went on, wincing at the euphemism. Given how long the park had been out of business, his mother was more likely to be waiting in the Great Beyond than back home. “She said it’s okay for you to catch up. She’s waiting for you there.”

  Billy’s ghost frowned, and I figured he was deciding whether or not to trust me.

  “I bet she’s been looking for you. She’ll be really happy to see you. Just think about your mom real hard, and you’ll know where to go.”

  I’m not expert on the afterlife, but I know what mothers are like, and since Billy looked well cared-for and had a family that shelled out for park tickets, I figured he’d have the kind of mom who didn’t stop looking for him, even on the Other Side.

  “Do you see her?” I asked, and held my breath.

  Billy turned around, and I wondered whether he saw Wonderama as it had been on that fatal day, or whether he glimpsed beyond the Veil itself. But just as I thought maybe the whole thing had been a bad idea, he broke into a broad smile and began to wave his arms, jumping up and down to attract the attention of someone only he could see.

  I blinked, and Billy was gone.

  Just in case, I cast handfuls of salt over the old ride, sprayed the landing with holy water, and left a sage smudge burning on the metal deck. Deep in my heart, I knew the precautionary measures didn’t matter. Billy finally went home.

  I didn’t have long to celebrate a minor win. In the distance, I heard the song of a carousel, and a few seconds later, the howl of a wolf.

  That scumbag tulpa was trying to play with my head. I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through me, since the hindbrain doesn’t listen to reason, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let that mofo run me off, not until I’d bagged its ass and banished it from the park.

  Next up was a big pumpkin that looked like a Halloween reject. The oversized squash was large enough that I probably could have crawled inside on my hands and knees, plenty roomy enough for small children. The weathered mannequin of a wide-eyed woman gripped the rusted bars over the window.

  Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater. Had a wife and couldn’t feed her. So he put her in a shell and there he kept her very well.

  Yeah, nothing creepy about that. The pumpkin looked empty, except for the bedraggled mannequin. But my spidey sense told me I wasn’t alone, so I raised my shotgun and turned in a slow circle.

  There. I saw a shadow flow from one place to another, where there shouldn’t have been movement. Tulpas feed on fear. I hoped they choked on anger because this monster was getting on my last nerve.

  “What kind of a lame-ass man locks his wife up in a jack-o-lantern?” I shouted to the darkness. “Seriously? That’s the best you could do?”

  Taunting monsters might not be a smart thing to do, but I never claimed to be a genius. Still, I’ve found that men and monsters get sloppy when they got pissed off, and so my sort-of plan involved annoying the tulpa into slipping up.

  As plans went, it sucked, but it was the best I’d come up with since tulpas weren’t as easy to kill as a lot of other creatures. I’d have to wing it, which is what all my “plans” came down to, anyhow.

  Instinct made me wheel just as the monster rushed me from behind. He had a skeletally-thin body and unnaturally long arms, with fingers like sickles and a head like a pumpkin. Red hellfire burned behind the carved-out features. The leering face had a mouth filled with serrated teeth, and when it directed its fiery gaze at me, I couldn’t help the fear that fluttered in my belly.

  “Suck it up, summer squash,” I growled, leveling my shotgun and hitting that pumpkin center mass.

  Seeds and stringy pulp showered me in a slimy rain of pumpkin guts, but the tulpa vanished. I repeated the cleansing on the cement house, preventing the spirit from returning, and moved on, once I’d reloaded. My hunts never went this well, and at the risk of jinxing myself, I wondered when the tulpa was going to get serious. I had the feeling it wanted to lure me deeper into the defunct park, where its power was strongest.

  Chiara hadn’t been able to get details about the other deaths at the park, so I had no way to know which ride had turned deadly, or which
of the cheerful structures had killed its builder. Having blood spilled during construction didn’t bode well, since that was like catnip to a lot of supernatural creatures. The park was a kingdom of broken dreams, so it made sense that the tulpa attached itself, feeding on the misery of the owner and then on the fear and death of the urban explorers and curious teenagers who were unlucky enough to venture into its lair.

  The carousel music seemed to come from everywhere, louder now. I remembered the cute map, done in 1960s-style illustrations, that put the carousel right on the other side of Mother Goose Land, in between the Fairy Forest and the Enchanted Woods, past Pirate Lake and before I got to Gumdrop Dreams Castle.

  The skeleton of a Ferris wheel rose, silhouetted against the stars. A car dangled from one hinge, and I wondered whether that happened long after the park closed, or whether it was another nail in the unlucky park’s coffin. Wonderama hadn’t offered big thrill rides, but it provided the basics that younger kids and their slightly older siblings loved.

  I skirted Pirate Lake, keeping an eye on the ominous wreck of a ship in the center of the algae-thick water. A swan boat sat mired in the muck near the lake’s edge. Back in the day, a merry band of pirates entertained visitors with silly songs and dances, funny pranks, and a three p.m. plank walking. I looked at the fetid water and shuddered, hoping that the lake had been healthier back then than it was now if some poor bastard had to cannonball into it off the side of the ship.

  The boom of a cannon made me flinch. I heard a wet, sucking sound, and saw the drenched figure of a drowned man rising from the murky water. I doubted Wonderama’s pirates looked like the horror crawling out of the lake. This wasn’t a sexy rogue or a dashing brigand. He looked more like a Hell’s Angel meth addict, dressed in a ragged shirt and torn pants. Long, filthy hair hung around a bloated face. He either had the pox, or the lake’s fish had been nibbling. Madness lit his eyes, and he fixed his attention on me with an unpleasant grin.