The teeth don’t move. They can’t move. They’re painted on. Annoyed with his panic-induced itchy pit sweat, he stalks forward to face his artistic foe. This wall, farthest from the caved-in ceiling and protected from the elements, has been painted. He doesn’t think it’s part of the original design. It doesn’t make sense, as it couldn’t be seen from the boats.
There are a bunch of men and women in white clothes, surrounding a fire. The next image is men and women, sitting on thrones on top of a rocky hill.
No. Not a rocky hill. A hill made of bodies. Charming. The next image is more men and women, this time in red, all in a circle. Seven of each. Ian pauses. Seven men and seven women. He trails the flashlight along the wall to the next scene. It looks like a maze as seen from above, and in the center, black paint so thick it actually tricks his eyes into thinking there’s a hole in the wall.
The next image is the teeth. The ones he saw before. But he was wrong—they aren’t teeth, because they’re all going the same direction, pointing upward, long and curving and sharp. What’s behind them is indistinct, blurry, either on purpose or with age. But lovingly painted beneath it, with so much detail it’s almost respectful, are fourteen skulls.
Fourteen. Again.
He doesn’t like that number. Or these images. Who painted them here? Why go to all the trouble of painting creepy murals in a decades-old abandoned amusement park attraction on the off chance someone tries to hide in here and sees them?
Chekhov’s mural. If a monster appears in a mural in the first act, it must necessarily eat someone in the final act. Chekhov was another Russian. Why couldn’t Ian’s ancestry have been Russian? He could be on a soul-discovery trip to Moscow right now instead of stuck in an abandoned amusement park.
This is stupid. It’s all so stupid. Ian keeps whispering that word to himself—stupid stupid stupid—in an effort to combat the dread that keeps finding new depths for his stomach to drop to. He doesn’t like this. Not this room, this building, this park, this contest. He turns to leave but trips on old cans of paint left here. They must have been used to paint the mural.
He goes back to the black hole at the center of the maze picture, shines his light right on it. And…he was right. It is a hole! Someone left this here deliberately, added it after the fact. Which means it’s part of the game. Which means…
He takes a deep breath and reaches inside the hole, ready to have his arm bitten off or mangled or something. But his fingers come down on something dusty and rectangular. He knows a book when he feels it.
“Ha!” he shouts, then cringes as it echoes off the walls and ceiling. “Ha,” he repeats in a much softer voice. He found the book. He found the fucking book. But it’s too late to hurry back to the camp. He settles in the darkest corner of the building, beneath a pile of the roof materials that will shield him from view if anyone comes inside, and examines his prize.
The cover is old, the leather cracked and worn. The pages inside feel brittle, and he can’t quite believe they’ve managed to survive the elements. As he opens the book, several pages fall free, and he sets them carefully in his lap.
His triumph surges as he reads a blue ballpoint inscription on the front inside cover of the old book.
She must have known I was against her, because she threw me in here with the beast. But she didn’t know I had the book with me already. Maybe they are all in on it, though. I stay hidden for fear of both them and the beast. One and the same, really. It doesn’t matter. I’m out of time to find a solution in these pages, to find an ending to this nightmare. I cannot stop it, and I will be consumed.
I deserve it. We all do. I’m sorry. May you do what I could not. And if you are reading this, Linda, I hope you rot in hell. I’ll be waiting there for you.
Linda! So this is the book. Of course it’s the book, and Ian’s going to get the bonus. He hopes it’s cash, but he’ll even take an advantage. Maybe he really can win this thing.
Eager, Ian turns the pages. The writing changes immediately, old and faded, spidery flourishes neater than any modern writer could do. It’s all Greek to him—literally. He’s pretty sure, at least. Someone has made detailed translation notes in the margins. Ian flips through, faster and faster. There, a diagram that matches the patterns and symbols he saw on the entrance gate. There, plans for a building. It sort of looks like a miniature temple, with more diagrams of symbols and patterns. And then, at the end, more Greek, pages of it, pages and pages.