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  Gage was crushed every time. He was resilient, but still, it broke Faith’s heart.

  Cal had promised her that he would leave the crime beat and advance up the editorial ladder toward a more stable job and life. It never happened—and she knew it never would because he loved what he was doing. That’s why she saw the looming layoffs at the paper as a chance for him to start something new, for them to reconnect. Because little by little she felt something was slipping away from them. They were growing apart, forcing Faith to take a hard look at taking control of matters because she and Cal couldn’t go on like this.

  They used to be so much in love. What was happening to them?

  The cries of the witch queen soon faded as the Hudsons navigated another labyrinthian connection to the next chamber where they were met by the distinct sound of vigorous chopping. Then, emerging in the gloomy darkness, they saw a man in a blood-streaked apron swinging a cleaver, blood running down his arm while he chopped slabs of meat on a table.

  “Whoa!” Gage said. “It’s the insane butcher!”

  Legs and arms, some twitching, were displayed on the hooks and chains near the butcher as he worked. His hair as wild as Medusa’s, his face contorted and smeared with blood, as he stopped his work to offer the Hudsons delicacies from an array of bowls. One was filled with eyeballs, one brimmed with fingers and another held brains.

  “Gross!” Gage laughed.

  “No, thanks,” Cal said.

  As the Hudsons moved on with a small group, the light grew increasingly darker, making it nearly impossible to see each other, let alone Gage’s face. The actors and sets were of a higher caliber than Faith had anticipated and she worried that Gage was going to have nightmares after this.

  She reached for his hand but he shook her attempt away.

  “I’m not a baby, Mom!”

  Suddenly the air filled with a loud hellish combination of perverted circus music and a thousand fingernails scraping on chalkboards. They came to a clown, malevolent makeup covering his face. Enormous fangs jutted from his head. He sat before an organ on a stool of bones while playing a demonic tune on a keyboard of little skulls, offering entertainment at the gateway to the next chamber.

  It was the darkest passage yet.

  Faith felt the floor beneath them undulating as thunder cracked. They were walking on something twisting, rolling and squirming.

  Something slimy and alive!

  Sudden lightning flashes revealed they were on a stream of snakes.

  “Oh God!” Faith screamed, rushing ahead, thinking they couldn’t be real—they must be some sort of animatronics or CGI, though they sure felt real.

  The connection, dimly lit with the lightning flashes, led them through a cavern-like passage overwhelmed with spiders and bats, forcing Faith to swat frantically at her face and hair.

  They’re not real, Faith assured herself, swatting around her hair.

  “Gage? Cal?”

  “Right behind you,” Cal said.

  Continuing in the next narrow connection they were nearly blind in the dark. They came upon rumbling so powerful everything vibrated. Feeling their way forward they brushed against earthen walls that were moving, closing in on them, forcing them to turn sideways to pass through. Sounds grew louder with the foreboding rumbling and heightened the sickening sense of being crushed and entombed.

  “I don’t like this,” Faith said.

  “Keep pushing forward,” Cal said. “It’ll be okay.”

  The walls were actually constructed of foam and, after the initial horror, the passage ended by opening to the next scene: a figure standing in a cemetery. Her skin was alabaster, her white gown torn and filthy as if she’d just crawled from her grave. She hovered a few feet over the burial grounds threading around headstones, stopping before the Hudsons and snarling at them. Throwing her head back, she opened her mouth to vomit a stream of blood that gushed by them.

  “The executioner is coming for you and there’s no escape!”

  Struggling to distinguish the entrance to the next scene, Faith, Cal and Gage searched the cemetery for an exit in vain before they were motivated to look again by the sudden rattle of a revving chain saw.

  “There, by the crooked tree!” Gage shouted.

  The lid of an upright coffin had opened, inviting an escape just as the executioner materialized from across the graveyard. A huge man, face wrapped in a ragged, grotesque mask, held the saw high over his head, gunning the motor as he approached them.

  “Let’s go!”

  Gage ran through the coffin door, his parents behind him with the chain-saw maniac pursuing them.

  They entered the final chamber where the floor was akin to a big plate, a flat, spinning wheel, large enough to hold a car. The room went pitch-black. Faith couldn’t see her hand in front of her face as the floor rotated. She couldn’t see Gage or Cal as the air exploded. Earsplitting, menacing metal music thudded in time with the sudden hyperflash of strobe lights, creating confusion and terror. In the chaos, Faith now glimpsed Gage and Cal—was that them?—moving on the far side of the spinning wheel.

  Or was she seeing other people?

  “Gage! Cal!”

  The music roared and she failed to hear a response—if there was one—as the floor turned and turned, disorienting her. Through the strobes, she spotted half a dozen curtained portals just as the chain saw’s whine grew louder, alerting her to the fact the lunatic was in the room.

  “Save yourself!” a recorded demonic voice boomed. “Choose your exit now, or perish!”

  Faith sensed that the saw-wielding lunatic had stepped onto the wheel and had her in his sights. That saw better not be real, she thought before jumping to one of the curtained portals. Her heart skipped as the floor beneath her gave way and she fell onto a cushioned rubber slide that dropped in darkness for a few seconds before gently delivering her to the lighted, safe world outside.

  Catching her breath, Faith stood, stepping aside as a teenage girl slid down the chute behind her. Blinking in the sunlight, regaining her composure, Faith looked around the landing zone of half a dozen chutes that webbed out to deliver visitors on a large air mattress.

  “Hey!” Faith spotted and joined Cal, who’d exited at the farthest chute. “That was wild! Where’s Gage?”

  Cal’s grin began melting as he looked at her, then around.

  “He’s not with you?”

  “No, I thought you had him?”

  “No, I saw him with you.”

  “Cal, where’s Gage?”

  Faith and Cal searched the chutes delivering a thrilled survivor every few seconds. Gage would be next. He had to be next. The seconds grew to one minute as their hearts continued to pound. Two minutes passed, then three.

  Time ticked by with no sign of Gage.

  3

  “I can’t believe this,” Cal said as he and Faith walked the perimeter of the chutes, searching the slides and the clusters of people shuffling along the exit barricades for Gage.

  He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere.

  “Maybe he got out ahead of us and ran to another ride?” Faith said. “Maybe he went to a food stand?”

  “I doubt it, but wait here for him and I’ll check.”

  Cal shouldered his way through the exit lines, battling frustration and unease while searching the rivers of people that were flowing into the midway crowds. Gage wouldn’t have left the chutes without us, he thought. He knows better. Unless he was confused and figured we’d got out first and left without him? Maybe he rushed to the next ride. No. No way. He’d wait. He’s a good kid—he’s sharp, like his mother. No matter how tempting the midway would be he’d wait for us.

  Come on, Gage, come on. Where is he?

  Cal continued, turning full circle, bumping into people, scanning faces of boys Gage’s age until they began blurr
ing. Cal scoured the Polar Express—nothing there. Then he stopped in front of the Zipper where Bob Seger’s Hollywood Nights was throbbing amid the grind of the thrill ride’s diesel and roaring crowds.

  No sign of Gage.

  Quickly, he circled food stands that were selling burgers and fries, pizza, ice cream, nuts, pretzels and cotton candy, scanning the people ordering, waiting or those eating at the small tables nearby.

  No sign of Gage.

  Cal thought it unlikely Gage would travel down this way alone in such a short amount of time, and trotted back to Faith at the Chambers of Dread.

  Her hope that he’d have Gage with him died on her face as they exchanged sobering looks.

  “He hasn’t come out here,” Faith said, turning to the chutes. “Do something, Cal!”

  Near them, they saw a man in his thirties wearing a work shirt with an embroidered Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp roller-coaster logo above his left pocket, a ball cap and Ray-Ban sunglasses. Obviously a midway worker, he was helping women recover at the slides, his rolled sleeves displaying tattoo-laced biceps.

  “Our son hasn’t come out yet,” Cal said. “Can you help us?”

  The man was unshaven; his long hair curled from his cap, the toothpick in the corner of his mouth punctuated an expression that told Cal he’d been everywhere, seen everything, heard it all and was bored.

  “People get hung up in there. Take it easy, pal, he’ll be out.”

  “He’s only nine!” Faith interjected. “He was right at the exit curtains with us and he’s not here. It’s been more than five minutes!”

  Cal saw Faith’s body reflected in the man’s mirrored glasses as he assessed her summer top and shorts. His toothpick shifted and he nodded to the Chambers.

  “Did you see him on the spinner?”

  “Yes, if that’s what you call the last thing before these slides, yes,” she said.

  “Hang on.” The man unclipped a walkie-talkie from his studded belt, turned and spoke into it. “Alma, it’s Sid. We got a straggler in the spinner.” He turned to Faith. “What’s he wearing?”

  “A Cubs T-shirt, ball cap and sand-colored shorts, khakis,” Faith said.

  “Got a lotta kids wearing that same stuff,” he said.

  “A blue Cubs shirt and ball cap,” Cal added. “And he’s wearing sneakers, blue SkySlyders.”

  “How old did you say?”

  “Nine,” Faith said.

  After Sid relayed Gage’s description into the walkie-talkie, it crackled and a woman’s bored-sounding voice said, “Roger. Stand by.”

  “Your people can see in the dark?” Cal asked.

  “We got infrared cameras everywhere in the Chambers and Alma watches from a control desk.”

  Several moments passed with Sid’s silent calm countering Cal and Faith’s anxiety, projecting an attitude that this sort of thing happened all the time. He scratched his whiskered jaw, then raised his walkie-talkie again.

  “Check the graveyard and the crusher.”

  “Stand by. I think...” the radio said. “Yup! Got him. He’s coming your way.”

  “Oh, good!” Faith said, relief washing through her.

  “He should be at the chutes about...now,” the radio said.

  A middle-aged woman with glasses whooshed down one slide, then two teenage girls shot down another, then a big-bellied man followed by a boy in shorts and a Cubs T-shirt—a red one. The kid looked more like twelve.

  “That’s not Gage! That boy’s not our son!” Faith said.

  “We need to do something now, Sid!” Cal said.

  Sid held up a hand to stem their rising concern and he spoke into his radio.

  “Alma, that’s not him. Go back farther—the witch, the clown, the butcher—and double-check. Shorts and Cubs T-shirt. Nine years old.”

  “A blue T-shirt!” Faith said.

  Sid shook his head. “The cameras don’t pick up colors, just shades, black, white and in between.”

  A few more tense moments passed, then Faith said, “Sid, we’re losing time and this is getting serious. Gage could’ve fallen. He could be hurt or unconscious in there! You’ve got to shut it down, turn on the lights and let us search for him now!”

  “Relax, ma’am. We have procedures for these situations.”

  “Then use them, dammit!” Faith said.

  “Hang on.” Sid pulled the walkie-talkie to his mouth and took a few steps away, but even with the noise Faith and Cal could hear him.

  “Still nothing, Alma?”

  “Still looking.”

  “Call a Code 99.”

  “Vaughn won’t like it.”

  “Call it.” Sid turned back to the Hudsons. “What’s your son’s name?”

  “Gage Hudson,” Faith said.

  Sid nodded and relayed it to Alma, setting in motion Ultra-Fun Amusement Corp’s procedure for a serious incident at an attraction. Within minutes, more staff emerged amid radio dispatches and workers talking on cell phones. Some went to various points to help visitors leave the Chambers of Dread through emergency exit doors and down stairs, apologizing and handing them vouchers for a free return. Other staff converged at the chutes. One of them, a man in his early sixties with a white cowboy hat and aviator glasses, had a private huddle with Sid before he came directly to Faith and Cal. He was wearing a navy golf shirt with the Ultra-Fun logo.

  “Vaughn King—I run the midway attractions.” He nodded. “We’ll find your son, folks.” King, face tanned with neat, trimmed white stubble, presented an air of authority as he turned and spoke softly into his phone.

  Cal and Faith heard a loud announcement being made within the confines of the Chambers. It was muffled but they could make out a woman’s voice on the PA system calling Gage’s name, telling him to report to a staff member.

  “We’ve shut down the ride,” King said. “We turned on all interior lighting. We’ve got staff inside who know every nook and cranny looking for your son. All the actors at the scenes are looking, too.”

  “Does this happen often?” Cal asked.

  King’s gaze was fixed on the Chambers as he stuck out his bottom lip.

  “It happens. In Kansas City, we found a teenager who’d huddled in a corner of a set, her eyes shut tight. She’d refused to open them. Found the Chambers a little too scary. In Indianapolis, we had an eighty-three-year-old veteran off his medication who wandered behind the butcher’s scene without the actor knowing. Found him sleeping behind the meat props. In Cincinnati, a woman fainted near one of the spinner’s exits. Unfortunately, no one noticed until we searched for her. It happens.”

  “What about the exits?” Faith asked. “We never saw exit signs inside.”

  “They’re dimmed but activated and illuminated in an emergency.”

  “Gage could’ve gone out one of them,” Cal said.

  “An alarm goes off when they’re opened. Staff would’ve been alerted and that didn’t happen.”

  Ten tense, solid minutes passed without results. King glanced at his watch, then spoke softly into his walkie-talkie. He looked at his watch again, bit his bottom lip and turned to Faith and Cal.

  “Does your son possibly have a cell phone?”

  King’s question thrust the situation up to a more serious level.

  For a second Cal recalled how Gage had begged them for his own phone. Most of his friends had phones. But Cal and Faith had said no—it cost too much, he was too young, he’d be tempted to use it in class to play games. They’d refused to give him his own phone for all those reasons, at first. Then they’d caved and got him one, and Gage promptly lost it. They got him a second one and he’d lost that, too. So that was it. No more phones.

  Now their rationale seemed infinitely feeble because, facing what they were facing, they’d have given the world to go back in time and get him another p
hone.

  “No.” Faith blinked back tears. “He doesn’t have a phone.”

  King’s Adam’s apple rose and fell. He removed his sunglasses and his blue eyes were tinged with concern.

  “I’m sorry, folks, but we can’t seem to find him.”

  4

  Cal couldn’t accept what Vaughn King was implying—that somehow Gage had vanished.

  “That’s ridiculous. He didn’t just disappear,” Cal said. “He’s in there.”

  Faith cupped her hands over her face. “Where else could he be?”

  King stared at Cal, then Faith.

  “Our people have already searched. Are you certain he didn’t exit ahead of you and wander down the midway?”

  “He was with us in the spinner!” Faith said. “Let us search for him.”

  King removed his hat, drew his forearm across his brow, a gesture suggesting that allowing the public access during a Code 99 was against company policy. A second later, as if he’d convinced himself that this situation was exceptional, or maybe to diminish potential liability—we did everything to help those parents—King found himself nodding and clicking the speaker on the small walkie-talkie again.

  “This is Vaughn. I’m bringing the parents inside to search.” To Cal and Faith, he said, “All right, let’s go.”

  His radio crackled. “But, Mr. King, the policy prohibits—”

  “I know what the policy says.” King cut the speaker off. “I’m bringing them in!”

  The key ring on King’s belt jingled as they all hurried toward the entrance. Moving around the other side of the attraction, Cal saw the Chambers of Dread for what they were: a series of interconnected truck trailers, forming an interlocking network that claimed to be America’s Biggest Traveling World of Horrors! He noticed the empty stool belonging to the fat ticket taker who’d eyed Faith and wondered if he was helping search for Gage.

  King led them through the jaws of the Demon King. There was no fog when they entered; bright lights lit the inside. Their footsteps echoed as they rushed through the spinning portal, which was now stationary. Gage had to be in here. The ever-present thud of the midway outside hammered a deadened rhythm as Cal and Faith looked for their son.