All of the glowing-eyed undead figures in the other basket cars watched them with interest. Soon the flames petered out, and the two riders were nothing but charred skeletons with glowing red orbs in their eye sockets. It became clear that they were still alive—or at least not dead. The skeletons stood in their seats, cheering, arms above their heads.
It occurred to Erec that they should be afraid of falling out of the ride from their antics. At the same time he realized that falling couldn’t possibly hurt someone who happily lives through being burned alive. It was such a horrific spectacle that Erec was stunned.
He could not remove his eyes from the victims—or winners.
He wondered what other fates lay in store for the riders. There were eight segments on the side of the wheel for the short arrow to point to. They read:
BURN
.
SHRED
.
ACID
.
GOLD COIN
.
LIFE IMPRISONMENT
.
CHEW
.
CHOP
.
GOLD COIN
.
Gold coins? If this was how he was supposed to risk earning one, then he wanted none of it.
Spartacus looked equally horrified. “Chew? I can only imagine what that means, with these starving undead all over the place.”
Erec shuddered.
The man with the tall hat patted him on the shoulder, making him jump. “Ready to take a chance at the wheel? We have wonderful prizes, as you can see. Maybe you’ll even win a gold coin! Think of all that you could do with a gold coin.” He smiled leeringly, and Erec could see that his teeth were just as sharp and pointed as the undead, even though his eyes were not glowing red. Erec backed away.
Spartacus said, “He’s no better than the rest of them. He just has coverings over his eyes.”
The thought made Erec shake with fear. One of those . . . things had spoken to him? He had to get away fast. . . . But, then again, where else was there to go? Would he have to spend the rest of his life in the miserable Underworld because he was too afraid to try to earn a gold coin here? Or would he end up dead, burnt to a crisp? There was no good answer.
Something moved next to his ear, and a whisper filled his head. “Don’t be afraid. We just want to help you.”
Erec jumped. It was the man with the tall hat. How had he gotten so close without Erec noticing?
Ward seemed not to mind the man at all. “Do you have some food I can eat?” he asked.
“No,” Erec whispered harshly, pulling Ward away.
But the man followed them, offers of French fry baskets and plump donuts in his hands. “Please, help yourself. Just one gold coin apiece.”
Ward began to reach, and Erec snatched his hands away. Even though the food looked and smelled far better than normal, it terrified Erec. “Come on. Let’s see what else is here.”
Booths with carnival games lined the sides of the tent, and the undead flocked to them, spinning wheels and tossing hoops over bottles. Rows of Kewpie dolls hung from strings along the tops of the booths, as well as odd things such as eyeballs and ears, floating in jars of liquid. A winner of a ball toss pointed at the jar of eyes, and the booth worker tossed one straight into his mouth. The thing made a hideous squishing sound as the man crunched into it, almost causing Erec to throw up.
Another hatted man waved them toward a smaller tent. “Come inside, and see the one and only Freak Show of the Bizarre. Be dazzled by our snake woman, her body is made entirely out of snakes. Watch her eat the mouse man alive! Only one gold coin, and you will be treated to delights seen nowhere else in the world. . . .”
A carnival barker seemed to be shouting just to them. “Step right this way. Age-guessing here. Let me try and guess your age correctly, and if I fail you win a gold coin. Right this way.” He wore the same tall stovepipe hat that the others did, and had a long, thin face.
Did everyone know exactly why Erec was here? It seemed like
they all taunted him with exactly what he needed—a gold coin to get back across the River Styx and home again. Maybe this was where everyone was sent who couldn’t pay the toll. Why else would someone come to this awful place?
At least the age-guessing stand didn’t seem to have as dire consequences as the Wheel of Fortune Ferris wheel. He walked slowly to the barker and eyed the empty stand covered with red velvet in front of him. Before stepping on it, he asked, “How does this work?”
“Such a cautious child.” The barker chuckled. “It’s a simple game. I guess your age, and you win . . . or not. That’s all.”
“And if you guess my age wrong I get a gold coin?”
“Exactly.”
Erec had his doubts. If the man was able to tell what he wanted, he probably could guess his age without a problem. “And if you get my age right?”
“Oh, you know, just quid pro quo. I get the return of the favor. That type of thing.”
“What favor? What happens?”
The man cleared his throat. “We get to keep you, that’s all. You become one of us. Nothing to worry about at all, my boy. You win either way.” His thin lips curled into a smile, showing his long, sharp teeth.
Erec stepped back. “One of you? No thanks.” He grabbed Ward’s arm and walked away, Spartacus at his side. “I bet there is no way here to really win a gold coin. What are we going to do?” If only he hadn’t wasted both coins the first time across the river. He felt like an idiot.
“I don’t see any way out of this,” Spartacus said. “I can’t get you and Ward across the River Styx. And there is no other way back home again without a coin.” He scanned the booths. “A lot of these signs offer gold coins to winners, but losing would be horrible. Look
at that.” Spartacus pointed to a sign at an apple-bobbing booth listing body parts that would be given up for failed attempts:
LIVER, KIDNEYS, PANCREAS, SPLEEN, HEART, BRAIN
.
“That’s awful.” Erec pulled Ward away. “These things are just waiting to devour us.”
Ward looked around innocently, like a child. “Can we play some games?” Erec saw a tray of food coming closer to Ward’s dangling hand. He whisked Ward away from the dangerous temptation.
“No. These games are bad.”
“What about that one?” Ward pointed to a small stand where a short, dark-haired woman stood, her hair in a ponytail. One of her eye coverings had slipped, revealing glowing red around its edge.
At first it looked like she was running a ring toss, but when Erec got closer he saw that instead of throwing rings, the players had to fling long bones into the eye sockets of three rows of skulls that were nailed onto a board in order to win.
“I can help you,” Spartacus said. “You throw and I’ll make sure it goes the right way.”
That sounded like a good idea. Erec read the sign.
BONE TOSS
TOSS THREE BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES AND WIN A GOLD COIN!
TOSS TWO BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES AND LOSE A GOLD COIN.
TOSS ONE BONE INTO THE EYEHOLES AND LOSE YOUR LIFE.
TOSS NO BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES AND BECOME A PERMANENT RESIDENT!
Even with Spartacus helping him, Erec was terrified of losing. Becoming a permanent resident likely meant being gobbled up by these zombie creatures and becoming one of them forever. But there was no other choice he could see.
He walked up to the creature in the booth. “I’ll give it a try.”
She smiled, baring rows of sharp teeth, and handed Erec three
smooth white bones. They were each about the size of one of his arm bones, he thought. Were they originally from people who came here and had turned into zombies?
The undead woman gestured toward the skulls, and stepped back, a look of contentment on her face. All of a sudden, everything around them had stopped. People who had been walking and talking, others who were playing games at booths—all paused and turned to stare at Erec.
He nodded, trying to keep an eye on Ward at the same time. Even if this game was not rigged, it would have been impossible to win. The bones would have to be thrown at exactly the right angle to make it into the eye sockets, and even then they would bounce out when they hit a piece of bone that split the eye socket in two.
But Erec had help, so he crossed his fingers and picked up one of the bones. He lifted it overhead, and aimed, and then threw. . . .
As the long bone left Erec’s fingers, he could feel it swerve in the wrong direction. One miss would lower him one gold coin—a loss he could not afford, as they were nearly impossible to get. More misses would be a disaster.
Spartacus, with ghostly-quick reflexes, grabbed the bone as it sailed by. He yanked it in the air as it flew—but it wasn’t easy for him. He managed to tug hard, wedging the bone deep into the eye socket of one of the skulls. A rickety sign behind the woman in the booth lit up with one blinking red light bulb showing one successful hit.
“Phew.” He wiped his brow. “That thing was programmed to miss by a long shot.”
Eyebrows went up all over the carnival. More undead gathered with interest. Some licked their lips with long, pointed tongues. Erec was sure they thought he was bound to lose and become their dinner.
He rubbed his hands together, and picked up another long bone.
“Let’s do this.” He raised it behind his head and threw it, worried less about precision this time.
Spartacus grabbed it and plowed the thing through the air. It was even harder now to steer, but he pulled while propelling it forward and managed to thrust it into another eye socket. With a buzz, the second blinking red light flashed on in the sign.
Nobody cheered. Instead, the crowd pressed in, silent and drooling. Ward watched with quiet interest.
“Here goes nothing.” Erec picked up the third bone. This time it yanked unexpectedly from his hand, and soared out of the booth. Spartacus almost lost it, and had to make it curve through the air toward its target. He groaned from the effort, and Erec worried he might not make it. But, just as it neared the edge of the table, Spartacus gave a final yank and jammed it into one of the skulls’ eyeholes.
The third light blinked on the sign. A strange noise filled the air, and it took a moment before Erec recognized it as a mass, communal growl. The creatures around them were not happy, as they might be losing a meal.
Erec wondered if they were going to accuse him of cheating. It seemed obvious from its curved path that the bone had not flown from a simple toss. But then again, they were cheating even more, pulling it in the wrong direction. Playing by the rules had nothing to do with the game here.
But he had won. He put out his hand, about to ask for the gold coin—
“Look at that. It changed.” Spartacus pointed to the sign.
BONE TOSS
TOSS FOUR BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES AND WIN A GOLD COIN!
TOSS THREE BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES: LOSE YOUR LIFE AND BECOME A PERMANENT RESIDENT.
TOSS TWO BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES: LOSE YOUR LIFE AND BECOME A PERMANENT RESIDENT.
TOSS ONE BONE INTO THE EYEHOLES: LOSE YOUR LIFE AND BECOME A PERMANENT RESIDENT.
TOSS NO BONES INTO THE EYEHOLES: LOSE YOUR LIFE AND BECOME A PERMANENT RESIDENT!
A man in a tall stovepipe hat held another bone out to Erec.
“I won,” Erec protested. “Where’s my gold coin?”
The man pointed to the sign. “See? It says that you have to throw four in to win.”
“But the sign changed! What if it changes again?”
The man smiled craftily and set a gold coin on the counter of the booth. “There it is, boy. All yours if you can make this last throw. Go on, take the bone.”
Erec eyed the coin, and then the sign again. With Spartacus helping again, maybe he’d finally get what he needed. He wrapped his fingers around the bone, but as soon as he touched it, it yanked backward.
Spartacus was in front of him, in the wrong direction to catch the thing. Erec, terrified of losing and being devoured, gripped hard, and held on tight. There was no way that he could throw it. The bone catapulted him backward, and he sailed over the crowd, holding on to it like a hang glider.
Red eyes followed him as he flew in the opposite direction of his target. It would be impossible for Spartacus to steer him now that he was this far away and moving so fast. It was hard enough before when they were much closer. He should never have tried this. Now it was too late.
Something sailed by him, even faster than he was going. It was Spartacus, and he was holding something. . . . The spirit soared in front of Erec, and in mid-air held the thing in front of the bone.
It was a skull. Spartacus jammed it hard onto the bone in Erec’s hand.
At that instant, a moment before they would have smashed
against the wall of the tent, the skull with the bone in it dropped to the ground. Erec fell with it. Hordes of red-eyed creatures crowded in, looming over him, teeth bared.
“Time to go!” Spartacus called. He pulled Erec by the hand up and over the crowd.
“But we need the coin!”
“I got it!” Spartacus had Ward wrapped in his other arm. “Let’s get out of here!”
The angry fiends let out a mass shriek of despair and rose off the ground in flight after him. In unison, they dove at him and Ward, grabbing and biting. It felt like a pack of hawks attacking from all sides.
“I don’t like this,” Ward murmured. “Ow . . . I’m bleeding.”
Erec didn’t like it either. He began to feel faint, and worried that he was going to pass out. Was he being eaten already? There were nips on his legs. . . .
But then a familiar voice entered his head, and it was one that he was never happier to hear.
Rise and spin.
It was not what Erec expected to hear from a cloudy thought. But he would not have questioned it even if he could resist its command. He broke away from Spartacus with new ease, his dragon power making him bigger and stronger. Wings sprouted from his back and he flew upward, then spun. . . .
Grab the Substance. Hold it tight and spin faster. Make a Substance Web.