I glance around to check on Jen. Everyone’s attention, including hers and Twyla’s, is on something over my shoulder.
“What is that?” one student shouts, pointing.
Fearing the worst—that Rabid is standing there with all of his netherling creepitude hanging out—I follow their gazes.
“Ants!” someone else yells as a rush of black and red races across the threshold toward us.
My throat cinches tight. It can’t be. I closed the mirror portal.
Scrambling, our classmates stampede out the entrance, leaving only me and Taelor. We back up simultaneously. The invasion swirls around us, trapping us.
“Al!” Jen shouts from the doorway.
“Stay out!” I yell.
“I’m getting help!” she screams back and disappears down the breezeway.
The ants are chanting, but I can’t hear them over Taelor’s yelps. She stomps her feet, killing and maiming several.
I plug my ears against their agonized screams.
They retaliate, circling us tighter.
“Back off!” I yell at them. “She was just scared … she won’t do it again.”
“Who are you talking to?” Taelor shouts, lifting her leg to stomp some more.
“Don’t.” I put a hand on her thigh, then pick up a garland of lanterns. By shuffling the globes through the infringing army, I’m able to brush the bugs aside without hurting them. Once a path is cleared, I seize Taelor’s arm and clamber onto the banquet table, forcing her up alongside me.
She breaks out of my hold once she’s standing on top. “You planted them. That’s why you were in the locker room.”
“What?”
“You’ve always been a bug freak! This is a prank. You were going to release them tonight, weren’t you?”
“No! I …” My tongue can’t complete the denial, because what would it offer as an explanation? The truth?
“Look,” Taelor snarls. “I’m sorry I told everyone your Liddell secret! How long are you going to hold the grudge?”
“Shut up!” I shout, dropping the string of lanterns on the table between us. “I need to hear them!”
She stares at me, eyes boggling. I glare back while listening to the ants:
Run … run … run! The rabbit hole’s undone!
They weren’t running toward us, they were running from something, until Taelor started attacking. A faint scraping sound jerks my attention back to the locker room. Five spindly fingers wind around the entrance. They’re shadows, but at the same time they’re not—all black and drizzly as if made of thick liquid.
The droplets trickle down the wall to form puddles on the floor, dark and shimmery like oil. Nails the size of talons erupt from each fingertip, spreading to birth more drippy fingers. In seconds, a blanket of hands clamps the entire length of the threshold. They grip and pull, as if they can’t get through, as if a huge weight holds them back on the other end.
My entire body goes numb. I don’t even want to know what all those oozing appendages are connected to.
“Do you see that?” I whisper, mostly to myself. I hope Taelor doesn’t acknowledge me. This is one time I would prefer to be hallucinating.
Her attention doesn’t budge from the ants underneath us, our oasis shrinking as they swarm closer.
“See what?” she snarls. “The millions of creepers you let loose? Yeah. I see them. We need a king-size can of Raid!” She kicks a line of ants making their way onto the table’s top. The lantern strand catches on her heel, and she stumbles. As she tries to right herself, a globe rolls under her foot, and she teeters.
“Taelor!” I reach out but miss her by an inch. She falls backward onto the table, head hitting the edge with a sick thump. Her eyes go dull before rolling shut.
“No no no.” I drop to my knees, keeping the shadowy hands in my peripheral vision. I stroke her cheeks gently. “Taelor, can you hear me?”
As if satisfied she’s defeated, the ants retreat toward the gym door.
Save our realm, Alyssa.
Send the trespassers away.
They siphon into the breezeway, and I leap down. With their whispers gone, the gym falls silent.
I whip around to face the shadow hands and choke on a strangled breath. The clown stands just inside the locker room entrance. It has a hostage: Rabid White. The clown’s cello’s bow is wedged between his fleshy chin and cadaverous neck.
Far above them, dark liquid dribbles from the threshold. The fluid runs down the clown’s face, blackening its eyes and teeth.
“Majesty, sorry I be …” my royal advisor whimpers, his hideous face remorseful.
His key dangles from one hand, the empty cookie bag in the other. Some crumbs dot the floor around his feet. He must’ve opened the portal, tried to bribe the ants so he could get to Wonderland like I wanted him to. Instead, Wonderland came to us.
I’m starting to think Wonderland has been here all along, seeping in ever since my accident. That was when the possessed clown appeared. Red could’ve found it in the cemetery and sent it after me.
I can’t let that demented plaything take Rabid.
“Let go of him!” I yell.
With a laugh as eerie and haunting as an out-of-tune cello, the clown squeezes Rabid tighter around his neck.
The oily shadows claw at the threshold, gouging marks on the painted cement wall. Whatever they’re attached to on the other side won’t let them through. They release a garbled rush of shrieks and moans, more disturbing than what I’ve heard on the third floor of the asylum, where patients cry out in padded cells.
The noise rakes across every nerve ending in my body and echoes through my bones. I slump to the ground, covering my head until it fades to silence again.
Depleted, I barely have the energy to look up. A giant black form pushes through the doorway, shoving the clown and Rabid aside. It explodes into a flock of shrouds, constantly changing shape like wisps of living smoke. They screech as they fly up to the rafters and wriggle into the bulbs, filling them with inky fluid until each one ruptures. The lights snuff out in a domino effect.
I yelp and roll Taelor’s unconscious body from its perch to the ground, then drag her underneath the table to shield us from shattering glass. When the last bulb bursts, the room dims, leaving only the glow from the breezeway slanting through the gymnasium entrance.
More shrieks hammer my ears. One of the shadows slinks along the floor to the gym doors, trailing a greasy black streak behind. It disengages the doorstops to swing them shut, leaving us in complete darkness.
“What is that?” one student shouts, pointing.
Fearing the worst—that Rabid is standing there with all of his netherling creepitude hanging out—I follow their gazes.
“Ants!” someone else yells as a rush of black and red races across the threshold toward us.
My throat cinches tight. It can’t be. I closed the mirror portal.
Scrambling, our classmates stampede out the entrance, leaving only me and Taelor. We back up simultaneously. The invasion swirls around us, trapping us.
“Al!” Jen shouts from the doorway.
“Stay out!” I yell.
“I’m getting help!” she screams back and disappears down the breezeway.
The ants are chanting, but I can’t hear them over Taelor’s yelps. She stomps her feet, killing and maiming several.
I plug my ears against their agonized screams.
They retaliate, circling us tighter.
“Back off!” I yell at them. “She was just scared … she won’t do it again.”
“Who are you talking to?” Taelor shouts, lifting her leg to stomp some more.
“Don’t.” I put a hand on her thigh, then pick up a garland of lanterns. By shuffling the globes through the infringing army, I’m able to brush the bugs aside without hurting them. Once a path is cleared, I seize Taelor’s arm and clamber onto the banquet table, forcing her up alongside me.
She breaks out of my hold once she’s standing on top. “You planted them. That’s why you were in the locker room.”
“What?”
“You’ve always been a bug freak! This is a prank. You were going to release them tonight, weren’t you?”
“No! I …” My tongue can’t complete the denial, because what would it offer as an explanation? The truth?
“Look,” Taelor snarls. “I’m sorry I told everyone your Liddell secret! How long are you going to hold the grudge?”
“Shut up!” I shout, dropping the string of lanterns on the table between us. “I need to hear them!”
She stares at me, eyes boggling. I glare back while listening to the ants:
Run … run … run! The rabbit hole’s undone!
They weren’t running toward us, they were running from something, until Taelor started attacking. A faint scraping sound jerks my attention back to the locker room. Five spindly fingers wind around the entrance. They’re shadows, but at the same time they’re not—all black and drizzly as if made of thick liquid.
The droplets trickle down the wall to form puddles on the floor, dark and shimmery like oil. Nails the size of talons erupt from each fingertip, spreading to birth more drippy fingers. In seconds, a blanket of hands clamps the entire length of the threshold. They grip and pull, as if they can’t get through, as if a huge weight holds them back on the other end.
My entire body goes numb. I don’t even want to know what all those oozing appendages are connected to.
“Do you see that?” I whisper, mostly to myself. I hope Taelor doesn’t acknowledge me. This is one time I would prefer to be hallucinating.
Her attention doesn’t budge from the ants underneath us, our oasis shrinking as they swarm closer.
“See what?” she snarls. “The millions of creepers you let loose? Yeah. I see them. We need a king-size can of Raid!” She kicks a line of ants making their way onto the table’s top. The lantern strand catches on her heel, and she stumbles. As she tries to right herself, a globe rolls under her foot, and she teeters.
“Taelor!” I reach out but miss her by an inch. She falls backward onto the table, head hitting the edge with a sick thump. Her eyes go dull before rolling shut.
“No no no.” I drop to my knees, keeping the shadowy hands in my peripheral vision. I stroke her cheeks gently. “Taelor, can you hear me?”
As if satisfied she’s defeated, the ants retreat toward the gym door.
Save our realm, Alyssa.
Send the trespassers away.
They siphon into the breezeway, and I leap down. With their whispers gone, the gym falls silent.
I whip around to face the shadow hands and choke on a strangled breath. The clown stands just inside the locker room entrance. It has a hostage: Rabid White. The clown’s cello’s bow is wedged between his fleshy chin and cadaverous neck.
Far above them, dark liquid dribbles from the threshold. The fluid runs down the clown’s face, blackening its eyes and teeth.
“Majesty, sorry I be …” my royal advisor whimpers, his hideous face remorseful.
His key dangles from one hand, the empty cookie bag in the other. Some crumbs dot the floor around his feet. He must’ve opened the portal, tried to bribe the ants so he could get to Wonderland like I wanted him to. Instead, Wonderland came to us.
I’m starting to think Wonderland has been here all along, seeping in ever since my accident. That was when the possessed clown appeared. Red could’ve found it in the cemetery and sent it after me.
I can’t let that demented plaything take Rabid.
“Let go of him!” I yell.
With a laugh as eerie and haunting as an out-of-tune cello, the clown squeezes Rabid tighter around his neck.
The oily shadows claw at the threshold, gouging marks on the painted cement wall. Whatever they’re attached to on the other side won’t let them through. They release a garbled rush of shrieks and moans, more disturbing than what I’ve heard on the third floor of the asylum, where patients cry out in padded cells.
The noise rakes across every nerve ending in my body and echoes through my bones. I slump to the ground, covering my head until it fades to silence again.
Depleted, I barely have the energy to look up. A giant black form pushes through the doorway, shoving the clown and Rabid aside. It explodes into a flock of shrouds, constantly changing shape like wisps of living smoke. They screech as they fly up to the rafters and wriggle into the bulbs, filling them with inky fluid until each one ruptures. The lights snuff out in a domino effect.
I yelp and roll Taelor’s unconscious body from its perch to the ground, then drag her underneath the table to shield us from shattering glass. When the last bulb bursts, the room dims, leaving only the glow from the breezeway slanting through the gymnasium entrance.
More shrieks hammer my ears. One of the shadows slinks along the floor to the gym doors, trailing a greasy black streak behind. It disengages the doorstops to swing them shut, leaving us in complete darkness.
