Streets of Panic Park

  “It’s probably locked,” Carly Beth said. “And The Menace is probably listening to every word we say.”

  “We’ve got to try,” Matt said.

  We trotted after him. He grabbed the brass doorknob. Twisted it and pulled.

  The door swung open.

  “Not locked!” Carly Beth cried. “Did Byron forget?”

  “Or is it a trap?” Julie asked.

  Her words sent a chill down my back. But I knew we didn’t have a choice.

  Matt stepped out into the hall. I took a deep breath — and followed him.

  The long, dark hall stretched both ways. The skulls stitched in the carpet stared up at us. The dirt-caked windows let in an inky gray light. The air was hot and smelled musty and sour.

  We didn’t walk — we ran.

  Our shoes thudded on the thick carpet. We hurtled down one long hall, turned, and ran down another.

  “We’re up high,” Michael said breathlessly. “We have to find a stairway down to the first floor.”

  We turned another corner. No sign of any stairs. We ran past a tall mirror, cracked down the middle.

  I pressed my hand against the glass. It was hard. Not an escape route.

  “Oh, wow,” Carly Beth muttered from up ahead. I followed her gaze.

  A TV monitor hung from the ceiling. It showed the Fear Meter. The red line had climbed to 40.

  The bracelet on my wrist was tingling. I felt it grow warm against my skin.

  “We have to stay calm,” I said. “We can’t let our Fear Level climb.”

  “Stay calm?” Abby cried. “Are you CRAZY?”

  Matt gave her a gentle push. “Keep moving,” he said. “Don’t look at any TV monitors. Don’t pay any attention to that meter. Just keep going.”

  Matt led the way. We started to jog again. Down another long, straight hall.

  A black cat sat hunched in the middle of the carpet.

  No. Not a black cat. As I trotted closer, I saw that it was a shadow cat. It floated just above the carpet, gray eyes peering out at us.

  It uttered a sad meow as we ran past.

  At the end of the hall, I saw two shiny doors.

  “A dead end,” Carly Beth gasped. “We have to go back.”

  “No. Wait,” Matt said. “Check it out.” He pointed to a button at the side of the two doors. “It’s an elevator.”

  “It’ll take us down,” Boone said. He wiped sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Maybe it’ll take us to the basement, and we can sneak out.”

  We stared at the shiny double doors in silence.

  Matt pushed the button. Once. Twice.

  The doors slid open slowly. We stared into the elevator car. It was narrow and deep. The walls were solid black. A single light-bulb cast a triangle of dim light from the low ceiling.

  We jammed into it, all sixteen of us. The car rocked a little under our weight. We pressed together. Too nervous to speak.

  The doors squeaked as they slid shut. As the doors slammed together, the light went out.

  “Oh, no!” I cried. My heart skipped a beat.

  Kids groaned and gasped.

  Total darkness.

  “Not much air in here,” Julie said behind me. “It’s getting hot already!”

  “Lizzy, you’re in front,” Abby said. “Push the button.”

  I stabbed my hand forward and hit the wall. I ran my hand up and down beside the door.

  “Push it,” Boone called. “It … it’s getting really hard to breathe.”

  “I … can’t find it,” I said. I slid my palm over the elevator wall. I tried the wall on the other side of the doors. I began groping the wall frantically.

  “I can’t find it. I can’t find it!”

  “There has to be a down button,” Abby said. “I … I don’t like this. I don’t like closed-in places. I … feel … sick. Please —”

  “Open the doors!” Sheena cried. “Let’s just get out of this thing!”

  “Please. I’m going to be sick,” Abby moaned.

  Luke was pressed beside me. In the darkness, he began feeling the wall, searching for a button.

  I slid my hands over the doors. I searched every where.

  “There’s no button,” I said. “No way to move. No way to get out.”

  “Are we trapped in here?” Abby’s voice cracked. She reached over me and started to pound the door with both fists. “No! Let us out! Somebody — let us OUT!”

  Shouting frantically, Abby pounded the door.

  I gasped as the elevator bumped — then started to go down.

  Then I let out a startled cry as the floor seemed to drop away from under me.

  I stumbled back against Carly Beth and Sabrina. Kids screamed. We were rocked from side to side.

  The elevator whirred as it dropped faster … faster …

  I felt my ears pop.

  We were dropping … sinking like a stone … too fast. Falling hard … harder.

  “We’re going to CRAAAAASH!” Sabrina shrieked in my ear.

  I squeezed Luke’s shoulder. Was that ME screaming?

  I shut my eyes. My ears popped again.

  My knees folded.

  I held my breath — and waited for the pain of the crash.

  The elevator hit the bottom with a deafening THUD. The car rocked hard. Bounced up. Then slammed down again.

  I screamed as the force of the fall dropped me to my knees. Kids were groaning and crying.

  “Owwww!” Someone’s elbow slammed into my back. I toppled forward.

  The light flashed back on.

  “At least we’re alive,” Robby groaned from the back of the car.

  We quickly scrambled to our feet. My back hurt. I was breathing hard.

  “Open the doors,” Abby said. “Please … hurry. I’m going to puke.”

  I slammed the doors with my open hands. Squinting in the dim light, I searched again for the elevator button.

  I couldn’t find anything.

  “Let me try!” Michael said, pushing to the front. He balled his fists and pounded with his monster strength.

  The doors didn’t budge.

  “It’s getting so hot in here,” Boone said. “I feel … dizzy. Kind of faint.”

  Billy spoke up. “I’m just a shadow. Maybe I can slip out through a crack and open it from the outside.”

  He floated like a cloud to the front. Michael stepped out of the way, stumbling over Sabrina.

  Billy floated to the top of the doors, then slowly down again. “No crack,” he said softly. “No opening anywhere for me to slip through.”

  Matt raised one hand in the air to get attention. “My bracelet is vibrating,” he said. “We have to stay calm. We don’t want the Fear Meter to shoot up.”

  “Calm? How can we stay calm?” Julie cried.

  “I don’t BELIEVE we’re trapped in a stupid elevator!” Michael shouted. He slammed the wall with his fist.

  And a metal panel fell off the wall. It revealed a hidden slot.

  “A slot for a key card!” Matt exclaimed. “Move out of the way, Lizzy. I’ll try my card.”

  I gasped. “But … you gave it to Byron. We all saw you!”

  “Oh, yeah. For sure,” Matt replied, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding me? I gave him my library card from back home. The big jerk never even looked at it!”

  He tugged the key card from his jeans pocket. He raised it to the slot — and slid it in.

  Nothing happened.

  I felt my stomach tighten. I stared at the elevator doors. No one spoke.

  Every second seemed like an hour.

  Finally, I heard a soft hum — and the doors slid open.

  Some kids cheered. I started to laugh. Crazy, tense laughter.

  I darted out of the elevator. Luke nearly tripped me, stumbling out beside me. We all bolted out of there as fast as we could.

  Where were we? I gazed around.

  We were outside. Staring into the gray sunlight. Standin
g in the shadow of a back wall of The Menace’s mansion.

  “Let’s go,” Matt said.

  He didn’t have to say any more. We all took off running. We were desperate to get as far from the mansion as we could.

  We ran back into the park, which was as grim and gray as before. I could see the Ferris wheel in the distance, black against the gray sky. We ran past dead, empty shops … silent rides … abandoned food carts.

  “Where are we going?” Carly Beth asked. “We need a plan.”

  Before anyone could answer her, a shadow person floated in front of us.

  She was so gray and misty, it took me a few seconds to recognize her. The little girl. The sad little girl shadow we’d seen when we arrived.

  She held both hands up to Carly Beth. “Find me,” she said in a tiny whisper I could barely hear. “Can you find me? Can you find me?”

  Carly Beth let out a sigh. She reached for the girl. She tried to wrap her arms around her and hug her.

  “Can you find me?” the little girl cried.

  Another shadow appeared. Another little girl. “Can you find me, too? Do you know where I am? Can you hug me, too? Can you hug me, too?”

  Another shadow floated next to her. And then four or five more shadows swept around Carly Beth.

  “A hug … a hug … a hug …” they all whispered.

  Frightened, Carly Beth staggered back. “No, please —” she started.

  But the shadow people swarmed over her.

  “A hug … a hug … a hug …”

  “Carly Beth —” I called to her. I couldn’t see her. She was buried behind the whispering shadows.

  “Can you find me?”

  “Can you hug me?”

  “A hug … a hug … Please! A hug!”

  They covered her in a curtain of heavy shade.

  I froze, staring at the swarming shadows. All chanting and pleading so sadly.

  And then Carly Beth’s scream rose over the muffled voices. “HELP me! HELP me! Get them OFF me! They’re SMOTHERING me!”

  I froze. Carly Beth screamed again.

  As I stared in horror, Matt, Robby, and Sheena leaped at the shadows. They struggled to pull them off her.

  “A hug … a hug … a hug …” The shadows’ frightening chant didn’t stop.

  The three kids swiped frantically at the shadows, struggling to pull them off Carly Beth.

  But it was like trying to grab clouds. Their hands sank into the shadows and slid right through them.

  Matt, Robby, and Sheena stepped back, shaking their heads.

  Still chanting, the shadows finally drifted away. The little girl was the last to leave. She tossed back her head and let out an ugly cackle.

  Then she floated away, too —

  —and I screamed. “Oh, NOOOOOOO!”

  Carly Beth floated darkly in front of our horrified eyes. A shadow. Carly Beth was lost … lost in shadow … a shadow person, too.

  She raised her hands and stared at them. “Oh, no,” she murmured. “Oh, please … no.”

  Billy floated to her side. They stood together, two gray shadows. “We’ll be okay,” he said. His voice seemed to come from far away. “We’ll be okay, Carly Beth, when we get out of this park.” And then he added in a tiny voice, “I hope.”

  Inside her misty cloud, we could see her shadowy body trembling. Her head was down.

  “I feel so … light and faint,” she said. “I can’t see you too well. It’s like … you’re all standing in a thick fog.”

  “It’s very cold,” Billy said. “I can never warm up. But we’ll be okay.”

  Carly Beth tried to rub her arms. “I can’t feel my skin!” She let out a sob. “I can’t feel my skin!”

  Sabrina stepped up close to Carly Beth. “You fought evil before,” she told her. “You defeated the Haunted Mask, Carly Beth. You can defeat this, too.”

  Carly Beth didn’t answer. She just kept rubbing her arms, smoke rubbing smoke.

  “Hey!” Robby suddenly cried out. He was staring at Britney and Molly. “I just remembered something,” he said.

  They turned to him. Britney and Molly looked like sisters. They both had coppery hair and brown eyes. Molly was taller and more serious, like an older sister.

  “You remembered something about us?” Britney asked.

  Robby nodded. “You two already made the trip from Panic Park to HorrorLand,” he said. “Don’t you remember? You came to the game arcade. I was in trouble there.”

  Britney scrunched up her face, thinking hard. “Yes,” she said finally. “Yes, I kind of remember …”

  “You came back to HorrorLand,” Robby said. “You tried to get me to come with you — to Panic Park.”

  “Yes. Yes, we did,” Molly said. “My memory … it’s weird. It seems like it happened a long time ago.”

  “Well, how did you do it?” Robby demanded. “Think hard. You’ve got to remember. How did you get out of Panic Park? How did you get to HorrorLand that night?”

  The two girls stared at each other. I could see they were concentrating, trying to remember.

  “That’s so weird,” Britney muttered. “I don’t remember …”

  “I can’t remember, either,” Molly said, shaking her head. “How did we get back to HorrorLand?”

  “Keep thinking,” Robby urged. “Come on — you can do it. You can remember.”

  “I … I remember it was very windy,” Britney said.

  “Windy?” Molly said. “Yes, I think you’re right. I remember my hair blowing all over. I had to shut my eyes. Yes. It was windy.”

  “I remember we walked through a building,” Britney said, thinking hard. “A white building. Like that one over there, maybe.”

  She pointed. We all turned and gazed at a low white building with a flat black roof. It had a dark window beside an open door. I didn’t see any sign in front. Nothing to tell what was inside.

  “Yes, it looked just like that,” Britney said. “I think.”

  “Should we check it out?” Robby asked.

  No one answered. We were already walking toward the building.

  We stopped outside the open door. Dark inside. Too dark to see what was in there.

  “It’s like a little house,” Matt said. He frowned. “Why would there be a little house in the middle of Panic Park?”

  “Are you sure the building you used to escape looked like this?” Robby asked Britney and Molly.

  Britney scrunched up her face again. “I … I think so …” she stammered.

  Molly nodded. “It’s so hard to remember. Maybe … maybe The Menace messed up our memories.”

  “Let’s go in,” Michael said. He didn’t wait for anyone to argue. He stepped into the doorway and strode into the building.

  The rest of us followed close behind him.

  “It’s a waiting room,” I said as soon as my eyes adjusted to the dim light. I saw a few chairs, a couch, a table with a stack of magazines, a reception counter behind a glass window.

  A doctor’s waiting room.

  A thick layer of dust covered everything. I picked up some magazines from the table. The pages were yellowed. The magazines were all from 1974.

  “Ohhh, yuck,” Abby moaned.

  She was staring at a fish tank in the wall. The goldfish in the tank were just bones — skeletons floating on their sides.

  “No one has been here for years,” Luke muttered.

  And then a voice shouted from the reception desk. “The doctor will see you now!”

  Huh?

  A man in a totally weird superhero costume burst into the waiting room.

  “Oh, no!” Robby cried. “It’s Dr. Maniac!”

  “You … you followed us from HorrorLand?” Robby cried.

  Dr. Maniac pushed back his leopard-skin cape. He wore red-and-blue tights and a red-and-gold top. His gloves and boots were bright yellow.

  His eyes rolled crazily behind his red mask. “Did you really think you could escape The Keeper?” he cri
ed.

  “Why are you here?” Robby demanded. “Why did you follow us?”

  “Because I’m a MANIAC!” he exclaimed. He tossed back his head and laughed a shrill, hyena laugh.

  Matt took two long strides toward Maniac. “Leave us alone!” he shouted.

  Maniac gave Matt a crooked grin. “Which hand do you butter your bread with?” he demanded.

  “Excuse me?” Matt squinted at him.

  “Which hand do you butter your bread with? Your left hand or your right hand?”

  Dr. Maniac didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s funny,” he said. “I don’t use my hand. I use a butter knife!” Again, he tilted his head back and uttered a long, high laugh.

  “You’re not funny!” Robby cried angrily. “I created you. I drew you. You’re a comic book character that I made up!”

  “I made YOU up!” Maniac declared. “If I shut my eyes, I can make you disappear! Ha!”

  “Tell us how to get out of this park,” Matt demanded. “Tell us what we have to do.”

  “Can you stand on your head and whistle “Dixie” with a mouthful of crackers?” Maniac asked.

  Matt turned to Robby. “He isn’t going to help us. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Oh, but I am going to help you,” Dr. Maniac said, moving to block the door. The leopard-skin cape fluttered in front of him. He pushed it out of his way.

  He moved to the wall and opened a cabinet door. On the cabinet shelf stood a Fear Meter. The red line was just above 50.

  “Tsk-tsk,” the supervillain clucked. “Look at that fear climb. You’re halfway there. I’ll bet all that fright is making you hungry and thirsty. Follow me.”

  “We’re not following you — we’re leaving!” Matt cried.

  I went to the door with Matt. But we all stopped when we saw the shadow people.

  At least a dozen of them. Floating in the doorway. Waiting for us.

  The room grew icy cold as they moved in, spreading their shadowy arms. They swarmed around us silently.

  I felt their icy touch on my skin. And then a thick curtain of darkness lowered over me.

  They were forcing us to move … forcing us to walk … holding us prisoner in their foggy grip.

  I shivered when the shadows pulled away. We were standing in front of a small diner. Through the window, I could see a long lunch counter with stools lining the front.