Streets of Panic Park Read online

  TITLE PAGE

  THE STORY SO FAR …

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  TEASER

  FEAR FILE #12

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  COPYRIGHT

  Captured. Sixteen kids.

  Captured and taken to an enormous mansion. It looked like a castle with black stone walls and dark towers rising up on both sides.

  I’m Lizzy Morris. I’m thirteen. My brother Luke is eleven.

  Yes, we were too young to face the kind of horror we found at Panic Park.

  We weren’t prepared for that kind of evil. We didn’t expect someone like the man dressed all in black who stood over us now.

  How did it start?

  Fourteen kids had been invited to HorrorLand Theme Park as Very Special Guests. They looked forward to a week of scary fun. But they soon discovered the scares were too REAL.

  The kids knew they were in danger. They became desperate to escape HorrorLand and get to another park, a place called Panic Park. A HorrorLand worker — a Horror named Byron — was their only friend. He told them they would be safe in Panic Park.

  Luke and I had been to HorrorLand before. Someone at the park started sending us information online about the kids. He called himself Monster X. He told us that Panic Park was a horrifying place — that the kids would be safer in HorrorLand.

  Luke and I hurried to the park to warn the kids.

  When we arrived, eight kids had already escaped to Panic Park. Luke and I tried to tell the remaining kids what we had learned. We told them to stay in HorrorLand.

  But the kids were frantic to follow their friends to the other park.

  A girl named Jillian Gerard said she had the power to read minds. She stared into my eyes. She told the other kids I was lying. She said Luke and I were working with the Horrors to keep them in HorrorLand.

  Byron helped the kids escape to Panic Park. They didn’t want my brother and me to come with them. But we followed them anyway. We thought maybe we could help them.

  Panic Park turned out to be a nightmare place. No color at all. The whole park was in black and white. Strange, sad shadow people followed us everywhere. We didn’t see anyone else.

  We found a newspaper that said Panic Park had closed in 1974.

  Did we travel back in time? Were we in some kind of parallel universe?

  We were totally confused.

  We only knew for sure that Panic Park was much more terrifying than HorrorLand.

  And now, here we were — all sixteen of us — in this gloomy, cold mansion.

  We stared at the man in front of us. He stood on a stage behind a tall podium. He called himself The Menace.

  Even before he spoke, even before he told us his name, we knew he was someone we should fear….

  The Menace was dressed in black from head to toe. His shirt and tie, his pants, his jacket, his shoes, were the deepest black. He wore black gloves. And his face was completely hidden in the shadow of a wide-brimmed black hat.

  We had been forced to march down long, dark halls. The walls were gray. The plaster cracked and peeling. I saw no windows.

  We ended up in a huge, empty chamber. Our footsteps scraped loudly over the stone floor.

  The gray walls were bare. They rose up forever to a balcony that overlooked the chamber.

  At the front of the room there was a stage. And a podium. And the man dressed in black. There were no chairs in front of the stage. We stood awkwardly, huddled together.

  Behind us, the door was blocked by shadow people. They watched silently as The Menace gripped the podium with his gloved hands.

  “Well, well, well … don’t all of you look FRIGHTENED!” he said. His voice rang off the high stone walls.

  Matt Daniels is tall and athletic. He is one of the bravest kids. He stepped forward and shouted up to the stage. “Why did you bring us here? What do you want?”

  The Menace uttered a cold laugh. “Love the sound of your fear!” he cried. “LOVE it! LOVE it!”

  Matt stepped back. He muttered something to Carly Beth Caldwell. Carly Beth is little and pixyish and looks much younger than her age — twelve.

  Luke and I stood behind them. I couldn’t hear what Matt said.

  The Menace’s words still rang in my ears. His voice was deep but hoarse at the same time.

  His icy laugh raised the hairs on the back of my neck.

  “How does it feel to be so completely AFRAID?” he asked. “Do you think it’s possible to be scared to death? Well, good friends … we’re going to test that out — aren’t we!”

  Luke squeezed my hand. “Is he for real?” he whispered.

  I started to answer, but the words caught in my throat.

  Billy Deep and his sister, Sheena, took a few steps back from the stage. They kept glancing behind us to the door. Probably thinking of making a run for it.

  Britney Crosby and her friend Molly Molloy couldn’t hide the fear from their faces. They stood with their arms crossed tightly in front of them and their jaws clenched.

  “We escaped HorrorLand to come to this place!” Matt shouted up to the stage. “We were told we’d be safe here.”

  “Safe?” The Menace replied. “No one is safe in MY park!” He slapped the podium with both hands. “Uh-oh, guys. Don’t look now, but I think someone LIED to you.”

  His words created an uproar. We all started talking at once.

  And then Matt and Michael Munroe stepped in front of Jillian and her twin brother, Jackson. Matt balled his fists at his sides. “YOU’RE the ones who lied to us!” he cried.

  We formed an angry circle around Jillian and Jackson.

  “You tricked us into coming to Panic Park,” Carly Beth said. “Lizzy told the truth — that we’d be safer in HorrorLand. But you told us she was lying.”

  “We thought you were our friends!” Carly Beth’s friend Sabrina Mason said in a trembling voice. “How could you DO that to us?”

  Michael is big and powerful. His nickname back home is Monster.

  He pushed his face right up to Jillian’s. “Admit it,” he said angrily. “Admit it, Jillian. You tricked us into coming here — because you and your brother were working for The Menace the whole time!”

  “NO!” Jillian cried. She stumbled back, trying to get away. But Michael stayed right in her face.

  “It’s not true!” Jackson shouted. “Leave my sister alone!”

  “We … we were never working for The Menace!” Jillian stuttered, her face bright red. “It’s not true. It’s not TRUE!”

  “Oh, but it IS true!” the voice from the stage called.

  I gasped. A silence fell over the big room.

  “It is true!” The Menace said to the twins. “Don’t lie to your friends.”

  “But … but …” Jillian stammered.

  The Menace raised a gloved hand to silence her. “Where do you think your special powers came from? From that tacky wooden fortune-teller? Of course not. Your powers came special delivery from yours truly, the one and only Menace!”

  “No!” Jillian cried, shaking her head again and again. “No! No!”

&nbs
p; “We didn’t know!” Jackson exclaimed. He turned to Matt and Michael and the rest of us. “We didn’t know we were helping The Menace! I swear!”

  “You’re both liars!” Michael cried.

  “No —” Jackson tried to duck away.

  But Michael punched him hard in the stomach, then tackled him to the stone floor. Grunting and groaning, the two boys wrestled at our feet.

  “Stop it! STOP it!” Jillian screamed, her hands pressed tightly to her cheeks.

  “Love it! LOVE it!” called The Menace, thumping the podium with his gloved fists. “I can SMELL the fear in this room!”

  Michael gave Jackson one last punch, then he jumped up.

  Jackson lay sprawled on his back, groaning and rubbing his sore stomach.

  “Oh, come on.” The Menace sighed. “Don’t you want to fight some more? You know it makes me happy.”

  I squinted hard, trying to see the face under the wide brim of the black hat. But I could see only shadow.

  Is there a face under there?

  The Menace raised one arm and waved to the shadow people at the back of the chamber. “Come over here, shades. Take Jillian and Jackson away.”

  “Huh?” Jillian let out a cry.

  “Take them away,” The Menace ordered. “They’ve done their job brilliantly. But … I have no more use for them.”

  “Wait —” Jackson cried. “What do you MEAN?”

  “What are you going to do to us?” Jillian wailed.

  But they didn’t get an answer.

  Shadow people slid around them. Covered them in a blanket of darkness. And herded them out of the room through a narrow door behind the stage.

  I shuddered. I could still hear the twins screaming from the other side of the door.

  The Menace leaned over the podium toward us. “How frightening is that?” he said. “Ooh, I’m shaking. I’m tingling all over. And the fun hasn’t even started yet!”

  I heard a noise. I turned in time to see Billy Deep spin around and break for the door behind us, his shoes clattering on the hard floor.

  “Let’s go! We’re OUTTA here!” he screamed.

  Sheena started to follow him.

  “No — WAIT!” I cried. “Billy — DON’T!”

  I saw the danger. I guess Billy didn’t care.

  He was almost to the entrance when a group of shadow people floated in front of him.

  They wrapped themselves around him. For a long moment, we couldn’t see him. He disappeared behind the shadows.

  I held my breath. And watched him come bursting out — right through the shadow people.

  We all saw him. We all saw what had happened to him.

  But his sister, Sheena, was the first to scream. “NOOOO! Oh, NO! What have you done to my brother?”

  Billy stopped and spun back to us.

  I screamed. I couldn’t help it. We were all screaming and crying out in shock.

  The shadow people floated back to the doorway.

  And Billy stood there, breathing hard, arms out at his sides.

  Billy’s face was gray, the color of ashes. His arms … his hands … all shadow. His body shimmered like smoke.

  I couldn’t see his eyes, his nose, his mouth. They were all a dark smudge! A shadow. Billy was only a shadow.

  “What have you done to him?” Sheena wailed, running up to Billy. “Billy — are you okay? Can you see? Are you in there?”

  Billy made a gulping sound. He glanced around, confused. I don’t think he understood what had happened to him.

  Finally, he raised his hands and stared at them. “I … I’m a shadow,” he stammered. “So cold … Help me, Sheena. I feel so cold and strange.”

  “Too bad,” The Menace called from the stage. He tsk-tsked. “Too bad, guys. Hard cheese, huh? Tough bananas. Billy Boy looked so much cuter before … when you could see his pretty face.”

  “Change him back!” Sheena screamed. “Change my brother back!”

  Luke and I screamed, too. “Change him back! Change him back!” We all started yelling.

  The Menace raised both hands to silence us. “Okay. No problem,” he said. “First chance I get. I’ll make a note to remind myself.”

  He laughed, an icy laugh that sent chills down my neck.

  Billy moaned. “But … I’m not ME! I feel so light … like smoke that could blow away.”

  “Very nicely said,” The Menace told him. “You should be a poet, Billy Boy. But let me give you one bit of advice. Next time you tangle with my devoted shadow people, at least make a fight of it. I need to see more fighting. I really do.”

  “He’s totally nuts!” Luke whispered in my ear.

  “And evil,” I added. “Does he think his jokes are funny?”

  “I don’t think he cares,” Luke whispered. Then he shuddered. “Poor Billy …”

  Michael tried to thump Billy’s gray shoulder, but his hand went right through him. He took a deep breath. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll get you back to normal.”

  He turned to The Menace. “Let us go!” he shouted. “You can’t keep us here against our will!”

  “Of course I can,” The Menace replied, leaning on his podium. “I can do whatever I want.”

  “We want to go home — now!” Carly Beth spoke up.

  The Menace snickered. “Do you have any idea how far away from home you are? Time to catch on, people. You’re not as dim as you look — are you? I’m The Menace. I can keep you here forever.”

  He pulled his hat lower on his head. “I can do anything I want,” he repeated, “because this whole world is MINE!”

  The shadow people at the door cheered. It sounded more like moaning than cheering.

  The Menace bowed his head to them. “Thank you. At least my people know their job. To cheer my every word and move!”

  “Why did you bring us here? What do you want?” Carly Beth demanded.

  “It’s simple, guys,” The Menace said. “I need to terrify you.”

  “Why?” I cried. My voice shook. “Why do you need to terrify us?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” he replied. “I need to make you scream till your throats are on fire.” He leaned toward us. “Any problem with that?”

  I stared up at him in dazed silence.

  We had already sampled some of the scares of Panic Park. Did he really plan to torture us with more terrors?

  What kind of horrifying trap had we walked into?

  Matt stepped closer to the stage. “We’ve all dealt with evil before,” he told The Menace. “Everyone here has faced powerful villains — and we defeated them.”

  “That’s the truth,” Michael said. He bumped knuckles with Matt. Then he turned to The Menace. “You think you’re so scary because you dress in black and talk tough? Well, look at us. There are sixteen of us — and we’re not scared of you.”

  The Menace pretended to tremble in fear. “Ooh, look. I’m shaking. I’m shaking.”

  Behind us, the shadow people all laughed — moaning, lifeless laughter.

  The Menace rubbed his gloved hands together. “Very brave speech, Michael, my lad. But do you really think you’ve faced evil before? I don’t think so. You have no idea what true terror is.”

  He thumped the podium with both hands. “I’ve had years and years to study evil,” he said. “Years and years to create total fear.”

  He paused for a moment. Then he said softly, “Maybe you need a sample. A little proof.”

  A cold shiver ran down my spine.

  The Menace waved to a shadow at the door. “Go to the holding chamber,” he ordered. “Bring in my newest trophy.”

  The shade nodded its faceless, gray head and floated forward slowly. He was almost to the stage when The Menace stopped him.

  “Hold it right there,” The Menace said quietly. “You’re too slow, mister. You should move quicker when I tell you to do something. That’s why I keep this handy.”

  The Menace reached behind the podium and lifted a black h
ose. It looked like a vacuum cleaner hose. He raised the nozzle and pointed it at the shadow. He pushed a button, and I heard a whining roar.

  “No — please!” the shadow cried. “Please — I’m begging you!”

  The Menace tossed back his head. His laughter rose above the roar of the vacuum.

  The shade raised his hands to protect himself. He struggled to pull back. But the vacuum was too powerful.

  I uttered a cry as his head disappeared, sucked into the roaring hose. His shoulders folded in like tissue paper — and vanished with a thwupppp into the vacuum nozzle.

  Then his arms, his chest … his whole body.

  I didn’t want to watch. But I couldn’t turn away. I stared, frozen in horror, until his feet were sucked into the hose. And he was gone.

  Silence.

  The Menace waved to another shade. This one didn’t need to be told. He flew past the stage and disappeared through the doorway in the back wall.

  My heart was racing. I felt dizzy.

  The Menace had destroyed that shadow person so easily. He laughed while he did it.

  He’s powerful and deadly, I thought. And totally crazy.

  What did he want with us? Did he just want to scare us to death — for fun? To amuse himself?

  The Menace turned to the doorway. “Bring it!” he shouted. “Bring in my new trophy!”

  The shadow appeared in the doorway.

  I squinted to see what he was carrying. But it was too dark.

  He floated toward us into the light. He raised the trophy high.

  And I opened my mouth in a high shriek of horror.

  He was holding JILLIAN’S HEAD!

  I covered my eyes with a trembling hand.

  I could hear other kids screaming. I heard sobs and cries of disbelief.

  Even with my eyes covered, I still saw Jillian’s head with its brown hair flowing behind it. The dark, wide-open eyes … the mouth drooping open.

  “No … no … no … no …” Carly Beth moaned by my side.

  I opened my eyes. I saw Sabrina bent over, puking on the floor. Abby and Julie were hugging each other tightly, tears pouring down their faces.

  “I thought this trophy might get your attention!” The Menace said. “It’s a beauty, isn’t it? All that lovely brown hair.”

  He took Jillian’s head from the shadow person. He gazed at it for a long moment.