The Ticket Stand - 1. Chapter 1

The child lay in his bed, curled up into a fetal position as he stared at the door across from him. It wasn't a door. It was a giant flab of flesh, glowing like when you put a flashlight under your hand, and breathing like a lung. It breathed slowly, filling with air and then flattening out. Then it breathed again. The boy was too scared to close his eyes, so he stared at the door that never left his room. It had been there for months. Haunting the child. Traumatizing him.

As always inevitable, he eventually fell asleep.

"It's the fifth drawing this month," the teacher spoke into the phone, her voice high and nasally. "If he does it again, we may have to suspend him. Your son is scaring the other children."

"Alright. I'll talk to him. Thanks." The boy's father hung up the phone and slipped it into his pocket. He was tired of her calling. He hated her voice. Parent-teacher conferences were nightmares. He felt bad for the kids that she taught.
Father walked through the living room to the kitchen, where his son sat at the kitchen table, his feet pulled up onto his chair. He was doing that a lot lately. Father tapped his son's head to get his attention, walking passed him to the sink where the teacher's phone call had stopped him from washing the dishes. "Feet off of the chair," he said. His son looked at him but didn't listen. "And what's this about "drawings"?" Father turned to look at his son, turning the sink on. "Why are you drawing those?"

His son looked at the table and pressed his lips together. His father rose an eyebrow.

"Well?"

"...It's in my dreams," the child said. He looked back up at his dad. "Daddy, there's a door in my room. It's scary."

"Well you'd better get over it because if you get suspended, you're gonna be grounded in there."

The child frowned. "I don't like going in there."

"You can't not like your room, it's yours." Father turned back to the sink, picking up the sponge and a plate to scrub, but then his son spoke up again, "I won't go in there." Father looked back at his son, who looked serious. He scoffed and put the sponge and plate back in the sink, turning off the water and grabbing the towel from the counter to dry his hands. "Alright. Let's go. Show me it." A child's stubbornness was always a little but funny, but it also earned a roll of the eyes.

"...It only comes when it's nighttime," the boy said. His father gave him a look.

"Let's go."

His son reluctantly got up from the chair and walked with his father to the bedroom, where he stayed at the doorway and let his dad go inside. Father, adamant on proving the boy wrong, started looking around the room.

"Hm. It looks normal."

"...It's at nighttime."

"Son," Father walked back up to the boy. He put a hand on the child's shoulder and knelt to be level with him. "You need to get over whatever... this is," he motioned around with his other hand. "I know you're not happy. I'm not happy. When you're unhappy, you see some dark things, okay? I saw things when I was a kid, too. It's just a phase. And you need to get over it." He watched his son, who's big eyes looked back at him. The man pat his son's shoulder before getting back up and slipping passed him, to finish his kitchen duties.

The child reached into his bedroom to grab the door and pulled it shut to shut the room from him. Then the boy sat against the door with his knees up to his chest, looking at the hallway wall.

l.l

In the morning, Father made a plate of scrambled eggs for his son, putting the ketchup bottle beside it because children were weird and liked ketchup on everything. Then he went to his son's room to wake him up for school, but when he opened the door and stepped inside to wake him up, the bed was empty. He turned from the bed and called out for his son, but there was no reply. Then he left the room to start searching for the boy.

He was nowhere.

"Alright, Father," the first responder said, which already put them off to a bad start in the dad's mind. He wasn't fond of "Father" anymore. "We'll go out and look for the kid, but in all honesty, he probably just snuck out for some fun."

"He's only eight years old."

"Exactly. I get calls like this all of the time and it turns out the kid just snuck out to play in the woods, or to wander around; we'll look for him."

Father looked at the plate of eggs, which were cold. The police hadn't come as quickly as he'd wanted. He looked back at the chubby officer. "...So, what can I do?"

The officer cleared his throat. "Um, we usually ask the parents to stay home, in case the child comes back, which happens often; or in case there's a ransom call."

Father watched the officer unhappily. "A ransom call? You think that he's either wandered off or been kidnapped for ransom? We have two hundred dollars to our name. I don't think it's a ransom."

"Now, Father-" The dad almost told the officer to refrain from that word, but he didn't and just let his annoyance stir a little bit more. "I promise you, it's probably nothing. He'll probably come home on his own."

"My son didn't just get up out of his bed and leave the house at six in the morning."

The officer put a hand on the father's shoulder, giving it a little squeeze in reassurance, but it did nothing, so he just pat the man's shoulder and dropped his hand back to his side. "...You've just moved here, right?" he asked. The dad crossed his arms.

"A few months ago. What does that matter?"

"He probably just got lost exploring."

"We just moved into this house, he's known this town since he was born."

"Alright," the officer shook his head, "You don't have to agree with me, but these are the steps that we take as police officers. We need you to stay here."

Once the officers left, the child's father sat waiting at the kitchen table for hours. There was no news. They didn't come by again. His son didn't come in through the front door. The plate of eggs just sat chilled, and the ketchup bottle sweating from being out of the fridge for so long.
It was nearing sun down.

The father stood up from the table and walked to his son's room, so that he could see if the boy was in there. ...To feel closer to his missing only child. He stepped into the room and sat on his son's bed, bowing his head and closing his eyes. Things like this, these are what made him hate the title "Father". They made him think, "Maybe this wouldn't happen if Lisa was still here."

He sighed and opened his eyes again, but his breath caught when he saw the wall in front of him. He furrowed his eyebrows.

...He could actually see it. The door. A flab of flesh beside the closet. It was still and dull, no life going into its lungs.
Father stood up from the bed and took slow, hesitant strides to the wall of flesh, where he reached out once close to it. He pulled his hand back before touching it in mortification.

What was it?

Carefully, cautiously, the father reached back out again and touched it. He felt it with his fingers before pressing his palm against it.

It was cold. Not just that, it felt slick and wrong with whatever skin it was made of. The father stared at it for a long time before pushing his hand against it. He could feel it start to give, like a taut curtain. But it was too thick for him to tear open himself.

Dropping his hand back to his side, Father stared at it longer, like it were a haunting, mystical alien. It wasn't there earlier. It wasn't. Why was it here now?
Stepping back away from the door of flesh, the dad kept his eyes on it before turning and leaving the bedroom, where he walked quickly to the kitchen. He stepped passed the abandoned plate of breakfast and grabbed a butcher's knife from the knife block before rushing back to the bedroom.

The flesh on the wall was still there, assuring him that he wasn't just seeing things. The dad tried and failed to stab the flesh, hesitating and pulling back at the last second, before shaking his head and trying again. His body tried to stop him, but his mind told him that he had to do it. He forced the blade into the flesh, making a sick sound as it slipped into it, and then the man dragged the blade down. He sliced the flesh open so that there was a space to slip inside. He didn't, though.

The father used the blade to pull open the flesh, holding it to the side so that he could peer inside. From the surprising looks of it, there was a hallway. The floor and walls were metal, clean of whatever gore the man expected to see inside. He looked back at his son's bed, empty, haunting.

...He gave the hallway his attention again and slipped through the flesh, holding his horror the best he could until he was inside of the extremely cold hallway. The walls radiated bitter coldness, so cold it made the father's skin burn. He called out for his son but his voice just echoed down the hall. There was nothing. He held himself for warmth and started down the hallway, continuing down the cold metal until there was a door at the end.

An actual, real door. With a handle and hinges. The father turned the doorknob and pushed the door open, stepping into whatever room it welcomed him to.
The first thing that caught his attention was the warmth that licked his skin like a dog with a wound- it made him relieved. Then, he started noticing everything else. The giant forest that stood before him, with trees stained pink from the color of sundown that kissed them. The ground was dirt, no grass to match the trees. He was outside. Somewhere. He didn't know this place.

He turned back to the door, but it was gone, like it had never existed. In its place, though, was a ticket stand. With a man on the other side. A real life man. The brunette smiled from behind the stand.

"One finger," he said, with such a welcoming smile that the father didn't realize what he'd said.

"...I'm sorry, what?" Father asked, looking the stand over absently. It looked like a child's lemonade stand, wooden and nailed together with a written sign that spelled "TICKET BOOTH" in a child's handwriting. The ticket man smiled again.

"A ticket. One finger for one ticket."

"I'm... looking for my son," the father said slowly, realizing now that there was nothing normal about this confrontation.

The ticket man held up two slim fingers.
"Then it's two, because you're here after hours." The ticket man reached underneath the stand and grabbed something, setting it on the surface top. ...It was a small guillotine. The father watched it for a moment before closing his eyes.

It must be a dream. This is all a dream. He opened his eyes again and held out his left hand. The ticket man smiled at him before slapping the guillotine shut on two of the father's fingers.

It wasn't a dream. The man screamed out in pain and pulled his hand to himself, and the blood was real. The pain, even realer. The ticket man wiped the guillotine's blade clean and put it away before picking up the father's severed digits. He used them to stamp two tickets with their blood, and then he held the small papers out to the father, who was yelling and screaming at him words of "What did you do" and "what's going on".

"There's no need to be upset, sir, the children's fee is just a fingernail," the ticket man spoke. Father looked at his bleeding hand to see how bad it was, and then the ticket man's words hit him. He looked back at the man to ask him what he'd said, or meant, but... the ticket booth was gone. The man, too. Father took in deep, calming breaths, and wrapped the bottom hem of his shirt around his bleeding wounds. He looked back at the forest, the whole environment stained in pinks and yellows, and the trees blowing slightly, although he felt now air himself.

What was going on? Was this really a dream? It had to have been, but why did that hurt so much? It must have been a nightmare. He slipped his phone from his pocket to call 911, but his screen was black. He tried turning it off, on, touching the screen, but it was just a worthless effort. It didn't work.

Father put his phone away and slipped the knife into a belt loop. He regained himself and advanced towards the woods, walking into the trees and looking around, biting his tongue at the burning pain of his fingers. The forest was void of any life. There were no birds, rodents, or bugs, just fallen leaves coating the forest floor. There was something else unsettling, though. All of the nooses that hung from the trees. They were all empty, but the woods rank of something dead, like... like roadkill.

The man walked for a long time, losing himself twice, before he amazingly found a cabin. It was a simple thing, small and wooden, with no mailbox in sight. The father walked up to the small house and knocked on the door. It was opened relatively quickly.

When the door opened, the father was greeted by the ticket booth man, surprisingly enough. He tilted his head at seeing the father. "What's wrong?" the ticket man asked at the father's skeptical, confused face.

"...I just saw you," Father said. The ticket man rose an eyebrow.

"No, I don't think so. Would you like to come in for a minute?"

Father stared at the man, watching him for any signs of abuse or assault. Why was he denying knowing him? The father ultimately decided to go inside. It may not be a dream, but none of this could be real.

The ticket man held out a cup to the father, although the man couldn't reason as to how the ticket man had suddenly gotten it. He hadn't left the room, and he didn't go to a table- he just held two cups.

Father reluctantly took the outstretched cup, peering inside of it. He was glad he did. It was black and thick like tar, with a dead fly floating in it. The man decided to hold the cup at his side. "I'm looking for my son," he spoke. It felt like those words were becoming more and more familiar the more he said them.

"Is that all?" Ticket man asked, taking a drink from his own cup. Father nodded slowly.

"Well, I don't know where any children are. You'll have to ask Security." Ticket man licked his lips, stained by the tar-like drink as though it were hot chocolate. It made Father nauseous.

"...Where do I find them?"

The ticket man pointed off to the side and Father followed the motion. He was outside again, surrounded by the trees. He looked back to the ticket man, but he was different. It was still the same face, but he wore a blue cap that read SECURITY, only the letters were backwards, like a mirror's reflection.

"Yes?" Security asked flatly, noticing Father's confused staring. Father blinked and cleared his throat.

"...I'm looking for my son," Father said slowly, confusion lacing his voice. His hand was void of the cup, he also noticed.

"Oh, we get a lot of those," Security said and reached beside himself, grabbing and pulling a filing drawer out of thin air, like it were invisible. The man, the same man from the cabin and ticket booth, started sifting through files in the drawer. "Benjamin Kale?" he asked, looking in a file.

"...No."

"Adam Reese?"

Father stared at the man, a young adult with dark hair. He brought his attention back to the trees. What was going on? What was happening?

"Adam Reese?" the security asked again. Father shook his head. "Last one is Charlie Grayson."

"...That's not him."

The security man rose his eyebrows and shut the drawer, like he were annoyed or tired. He was just drinking some gross drink in a cabin! The drawer disappeared once more, to add to the questions. The brunette looked at Father. "Looks like he's not in the lost and found."

"...What does that mean?"

"That he's on the right track. You should be, too."

Father blinked in confusion, but the Security was gone when he opened his eyes again. "...What?" Instead of the man, there was a painted, wooden sign in his place. It pointed two directions, left and right. It read, "School house right, certain death left".

Father stared at it for a long time before going right. It was more trees, nothing to tell him if he was going in circles. He stayed right for a very long time, almost turning around to head back, but willing himself to continue. He couldn't risk getting lost. And that mindset let him find the schoolhouse, eventually. There was no name on the building, and it looked relatively old, but he could best assume that it was the schoolhouse. So he went inside.

It hadn't occurred to him yet, but he'd just realized the lack of lightbulbs, both here and in the cabin. Yet, the rooms weren't dark. There were no windows in the front of the schoolhouse, but somehow light filled the hall, the same as the cabin. As though the lights were perhaps invisible as well, like the filing cabinet at the security.

Letting those thoughts aside, Father noted that there were... no children. But he could hear them. It was like children were speaking loud and lively, but there was no physical evidence of such a thing. Until... A phonograph. A phonograph down the hall was the outlet of the voices. Father walked up to it in the empty hall, examining it. He was right. The voices were coming from this. But, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't understand what they were saying. It was all illegible, incoherent. It didn't sound like another language, it just sounded... wrong.

Father left the phonograph of talking and laughing children, and started looking inside of the classrooms. They were all locked. Not locked, jammed. None of the doorknobs would turn. One classroom in particular, let out some speech, so Father tried that doorknob and- it turned. He stepped inside.

It was the ticket man again- ticket man, cabin man, security- it was him, standing at the chalkboard and writing something. It looked like he'd written it so many times that the chalkboard was... filled with white chalk. "A dead man is a dead man, but a live one is a ticking man," he spoke while he wrote, as though he were teaching. But the classroom was empty. There were no children. The desks were old and empty, covered in dirt and soot instead of dust, and... one harboring a child's skeleton.

Father stared at the skeleton for a moment before looking back to the... teacher. "...Ahem."

The teacher looked at the father. "Yes?"

"I'm looking for my son," Father said, looking down at his bleeding hand. The bleeding had slowed, almost to a stop, but his shirt was soaked in blood in that spot, the crimson spreading slowly up his white button up shirt.

The teacher looked at the desks, each and every one, like there were actual children there. Then he shook his head and looked at Father, who glanced at him again. "Looks like he isn't here," he said, agitation lacing his voice, how Father's son's teacher always sounded when she called about the boy.

Father sighed. "...Please, I just need to find him. Just tell me where he is, I know you know."

The teacher watched Father for a moment before pointing a teacher's pointer at him. "Kids that run loose stick their heads in a noose!" he yelled angrily.

Father blinked in surprise.

"What?"

He was in the forest again, standing in front of a noose hanging from a tree. From the noose, a hanging child; rotten and beyond recognition. Father screamed in alarm and fell back, staring at the child. From the copper hair, he could tell it wasn't his son. Relief flooded over him, but his heart still pounded. This was a dead child, no matter if it was his or not. It was still mortifying.

Father managed to tear his eyes away from the body, trying to calm his quick breaths so that he didn't puke. Closing his eyes to concentrate on himself, his mind trained on a noise in the woods, a whistling. He opened his eyes again, despite not wanting to. He didn't look at the child, but he concentrated on the whistling. Getting up from the leafy ground, he stalked off to find the sound, holding his stomach as bile tried creeping up his throat.

He eventually came to a clearing, where the trees ended. In the distance was again the ticket man, but in a blue jumper and wordless cap. He swept a cement platform just before a gate to a carousel ride, whistling a song to himself. Father made his way over.

"Hey!" he yelled, getting the other man's attention. "What the hell is going on! There are dead children here! What are you doing?"

The janitor looked at Father as the man walked up to him, and then glanced back to the platform, where he swept maggots from the surface. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. Father scowled.

"Bullshit, tell me where my son is!" The most he had cursed in a... very long time. He hadn't ever said those words since highschool.

The janitor stopped sweeping to look over the gate, at the carousel that was in service. He looked back to Father. "I shouldn't tell you," he said quietly, "But I saw a kid on the carousel earlier. Do you have a ticket?"

The father furrowed his eyebrows before nodding slightly, getting the tickets from his pocket to look at them. He held one out to the janitor, who took it. Then the man in blue snapped his fingers in front of Father's face, making him flinch. When Father looked again, the janitor wore different clothes, a red and white striped dress shirt and black pants, and a hat the read SERVICE. The serviceman smiled. "One ticket?" he asked. Father nodded slowly.

"...Yeah."

Service brought the ticket up to his face and opened his mouth, dragging his tongue over the ticket to lick up the stamp of blood. The unsettling part wasn't him licking the ticket, it was him staring at the father while doing so. Service then pointed the ticket towards the carousel. "Enjoy your ride," he said, the gate squeaking as it opened, allowing access. Father walked to it, wishing that he could will himself to wake up, but it wasn't a dream, as much as he wished it was.

The music of the carousel was a broken record, the result having no resemblance to any sort of music. But that wasn't as bad as what Father noticed next. This one took the cake for sure. It was the horses on the ride, alive, impaled by the ride and screaming in anguish. They thrashed their necks and kicked their legs, trying to get free of the torture, but they couldn't. Father glanced back at the serviceman, but he was gone. He reluctantly stepped up onto the carousel. He looked at the horses.

One of them had a black spot on its back, where it looked like a child had sat on it, but an impression was left for some reason. Father touched the horse beside him and his hand left the same black, ashy impression. ...His son had probably been there. But how could he actually ride one of these? Father looked up at the roof of the carousel, but instead his eyes found a black ceiling. He looked back down and saw that he now stood in front of a bar's counter.

The establishment was silent, no voices or audio from a television. Looking around, Father could see that there were heads on the walls- human, and adult. He looked back at the counter, where the ticket man stood, but in a totally different attire that made him apart from the other people he had posed as before. He wore completely black clothing, with rings and leather bracelets on his wrists, necklaces that jingled when the man leaned on the counter. He dark hair was brushed back out of his face, revealing more of his looks. He had blue eyes, whereas when Father first saw him, they were green. ...Were they really not the same person?

"What'll you have?" the bartender asked. Father shook his head.

"Nothing. ...I'm looking for my son."

"Your son? A boy came in here, but I didn't serve him anything."

"Can you tell me where he went?"

"If you buy a drink. Just one ticket."

Father looked at the mounted heads, of fathers and mothers, presumably. ...What had killed them? The bartender fixed up a drink and slid it to Father on the bar. The man looked at it. It looked like normal beer from the tap, overfilling from the large portion of foam. The bartender was watching him.

"No, thank you." Father slid the cup back to the bartender, who tilted his head.

"You aren't buying?"

"...No."

The bartender hummed to himself and he was suddenly standing just in front of the father, inches away from the man. He clapped his hands in front of the dad's face, his rings clacking together.

Father opened his eyes to a staircase, to which he was at the bottom. Walking up the red stairs was his son. All of the nonsense didn't have to make sense, Father didn't have to understand it- he had finally found his son. He called out to the boy, but the child didn't look at him. He kept walking up the stairs.

Father started running after him. With each step closer to his son, the stairs seemed to expand five times further apart, until his son was unreachable. Like a never ending hallway, the stairs kept gaining and gaining, and after a time, it was like Father wasn't making any progress up the stairs at all. The next step Father took suddenly slanted downward, making the man trip. He tried to catch his footing, but all of the other stairs he had stepped up suddenly slanted, too. He fell.

Father tried catching himself as he slid quickly down the slide of stairs, but there was nothing to grab. As he got closer to the bottom, he saw that there were giant spikes waiting for him below. With adult, human remains. Father grasped at the wall to stop himself, to desperately save himself, and a rope suddenly slipped down beside him. He grabbed it, his body jerking to a stop, making him grunt at the force of it. Down below, he stared at his intended fate. He had just barely stopped before the spikes. Looking up, he saw that the rope wasn't just luck; the ticket man, in mounting gear, stood at the stairs just before the slope.

"Go ahead and climb up, we don't have all day," the man called. Father started climbing up the best he could with eight fingers.

Once he made it up, he climbed onto the step and stood beside his savior, who rolled the rope up.

"...Why are you helping me now?" Father panted. The noirette rose an eyebrow at the man.

"I'm not helping you, I'm a guide." The man suddenly lashed out and shoved Father, the man tumbling down the slope and screaming in fear, until he landed on a flat, safe ground. He opened his eyes, chest moving in quick, panicked breaths.

He could have died.

Father got up on his elbows, looking around at his surroundings with shaky breaths. He was in the woods again, with the hanging nooses. One held a child's corpse that looked fresher than the other, but they were still, undeniably dead. Father closed his eyes again and sighed deeply.

He needed his son. Thoughts ran through his head of where the boy could be, of what was happening- he tried to make sense of what was going on in this place but he couldn't. Why was he there? Why were there dead children here? Could that happen to his son?

Memories, of his child being born, screaming and wailing in discomfort of the world. He needed to be protected. That infant knew that he was delicate. Tiny fingers, with even tinier fingernails.
Father opened his eyes and looked at the ground. ...He had to find his son. He stood up and started through the woods again.

When he didn't think he was going to find anything important, he came across the cabin again. Without knocking, he went inside. And there was no one there.

"Hello!" he called out. "I need to talk to you!" When there was no reply, he started walking through the living room, putting his ears to the doors that lined it. There wasn't even a kitchen visible, probably hidden behind one of the doors. The rooms were all silent, and when the dad tried opening them, they were locked. Except one. It was unlocked, but there were no noises inside. The father almost decided to forget it, but he couldn't risk it and opened the door.

He was hit by the immediate stench of rotting. It stank of blood and dead animals, and guts colored the floor. Father groaned and gagged in disgust, bringing a hand up to cover his nose and mouth. When he looked up, the ticket man stood in front him, watching him.

"I'm sorry, I-" the father tried to speak, but he almost vomited and had to shut his mouth. It seemed like the ticket man wanted to apologize instead.

"Sorry, I didn't think I'd have company," the brunette spoke, slipping passed the father and closing the door, shutting the stench away from them. He looked at the dad. "Was your son in the lost and found?" he asked like he didn't have a room full of gore.

"...No," Father said, walking away from the room so that he could get in a deep, clear breath. The ticket man followed him, bloody footprints being left from the guts that he had been stepping over.

"Oh, sorry to hear. So you haven't found him yet?"

"No, I haven't. …What am I supposed to do? I don't know where he is, and everything here comes and goes when it wants." Father shook his head, sighing. The ticket man watched him, peering at the older man.

"Do you believe on God?"

Father looked at him, surprised by the question. He pressed his lips together.

"...Not anymore."

"Really? Everyone else here did."

Father sucked his teeth. "I just- I need my son, that's all I care about. Would God let something like this go on?"

The ticket man rose his eyebrows and smiled before shrugging. "You'll have to find the judge," he said. "He's in charge of the good children."

Father looked at him. "Good children?"

"The ones who know what they're doing. The judge should be in the courthouse."

Father closed his eyes and let out another breath. "...Where is that?"

The ticket man pointed and Father looked. A courthouse, far from any trees. Father didn't have to look at the ticket man to know that he was gone, so he just walked up to the courthouse and went inside.

There were no pews, or pillars, or any decorations. It was just a single, giant and empty room. Two cages hung from the ceiling, with adult bodies inside. One looked like it had been skinned. The other, a skeleton.

"Hello!" Father called. The floor was dirt; the place was like a mausoleum. When the father looked at the front of the room, the ticket man stood there in a black robe. The hood of the clothing cast a heavy shadow over their face, almost making his features indistinguishable He looked at the father.

"You've come this far?" he asked, something in his voice telling Father that it was weird, being here. There were only two adult bodies here. Was it that hard to get to this point? Father grit his teeth at his thoughts. He was making it sound more like a video game or something, now. "Your son is ready for you," the ticket man added, "He took a detour and got into some trouble, but he's managed to make it just in time."

"...Time for what?"

"The verdict." The man suddenly fell, crumpling into a pile of clothing on the ground, dirt blowing from the small action. Father stared at the robe for a moment, confused, but then it was suddenly thrown at him. It wrapped itself around his face, blinding him, and constricting until he could barely get a breath. He clawed at it, trying to get it off, and managed to tear it off of him, throwing the clothing to the ground. He gave a breath that he didn't even realize, once he saw what was in front of him.
It wasn't human at all. It was... something that would never happen in real life.

A giant... monster, stood before him, on four legs although it looked like it could stand on two. It was hideous. Puss and some other substance leaked from its mouth, giant teeth jutting out from its lips, from an extensive under-bite. It had no eyes, just a layer of scarred skin to fill the absence. And it rank something more putrid than the room of gore in the cabin, from giant blisters on its rough, sharp skin. One popped, gushing a stream of blood and puss down its arm, so hot that steam trailed from it, and the monster stomped on the ground like it hurt. Father backed away from it and retched, but there was nothing in his stomach to puke out.

Then it charged at him.

Father covered his nose and stumbled out of the way, the thing lumbering passed him, the ground vibrating and the walls shaking, dust falling from them. Father looked at the monster, watching as it turned its humongous body to face him again.

It was slow. It was a quick runner, but it was slow to turn around, like the building wasn't big enough for it. It charged at him again.

Father tried to run passed it, but the monster grabbed him with a giant claw and slapped him back, sending him flying through the air until he hit the wall.

All of his air was snuffed from him and his head spun. He coughed, trying to get some breaths, trying to will his vision to work right. He couldn't see, everything was in doubles. He could hear the monster scratching the floor, letting out a giant roar of excitement. It didn't come at him again, though. Did it not know where he was?

Father groaned and got up, his back aching worse than anything he'd ever felt. His head pounded like the worst migraine. He had to do this. He couldn't die here. That thought was too real. He could actually die there.

He had a knife. What he could do with it, he hadn't the slightest idea. He had it, though, from the kitchen. Slipping it out of his belt loop, he looked down at the slightly warbled blade from his healing vision. He was going to die here. And his poor son.

"Hey!" Father called through his disorientation. The monster didn't waste any time running for him. Father used the wall as support to give himself a running boost, which helped because his body wasn't up for it and he stumbled, but managed to keep upright. As the thing charged at him, dodged out of the way and it hit the wall. Then it started turning back around. Father examined it with his clear vision.

It all looked rock solid. Its skin was made of thick scales, and it showed no weakness on its body. Then he saw the blisters. It was the most grotesque idea ever, but Father ran to the monster while it turned and stabbed a blister on its front forearm. He backed away when it started spilling over, the monster roaring out in pain and stomping against the ground, making the courthouse rumble. Father could feel the heat from the blister from where he stood. He backed away some more, to avoid the stench and getting trampled. But then he went back in. He had to finish this.

With each busted blister, the monster got more agitated, but it couldn't see its attacker, and it probably couldn't smell him, either, over its own stench. It was being burned. It seemed that the longer the hot puss stayed on its skin, the deeper it penetrated.

After a time, it fell onto its side, weak. Father could see something large working its way up the monster's throat, forcing the thing's mouth open and slipping out. It... looked like an oversized, soft-shelled egg. Father stared at the abomination and saw it move, whatever inside pushing the side like a baby in its mother's stomach, kicking her.

It prompted the father to kneel beside the egg and cut open its soft exterior.
His son lay inside, in a fetal position, wet from whatever fluids were inside with him, and unconcious. His father gasped in surprise and grabbed his son, shaking the boy lightly to wake him up.

"Wake up, baby," he urged, nudging the child and wiping his hair from his face, the dark strands stuck to his forehead like after a hard day in the heat. He didn't wake up, though he was breathing. It wasn't enough for the father, but he stood up with the boy and carried him out of the courthouse.

He expected to see the forest upon exiting, but was greeted by the ticket stand instead. The ticket man, inside.
"Ticket?" the man asked and held out a hand. Father watched him for a moment before stepping up to the booth with his son and getting the last ticket. The man behind the stand took the ticket and looked at the stamp of blood before nodding. He looked at the child. "And the child's ticket?"

"...He doesn't have one."

"Well, it's a finger for an adult and a fingernail for a child. Do you want to pay?" The man held up a set of pliers, the tip stained with blood. The father glanced at his son before shifting to hold the boy better. He held out his hand of three fingers and the ticket man used the pliers to rip off a fingernail.

"Ah!" Father hissed in pain and waved his hand, biting his bottom lip. The ticket man touched the air and the door that the father had arrived in appeared again. He then opened it.

"Congratulations," he said. "You must really love your son."

Father looked at the man before carrying his son to the door and stepping inside.

There was no cold, metal hallway. He and his child were suddenly standing in the middle of the boy's bedroom. He looked at the closet, but there was no door of flesh.

l.l

The ticket man looked at his puppet, the thing's blisters torn and ripped open. He hummed to himself as he stitched the felt back together.

"And one was won," he said to himself, lifting the puppet up higher to admire it, the sewing needle sticking inside of it.

He smiled.