Chapter 3: Rotten To The Core
The silence that followed their ordeal on The Last Ride was a new kind of terror. The relentless carnival music had been a torment, but at least it was a distraction. This profound quiet was heavy and watchful. It felt like the entire carnival was holding its breath, waiting to see what they would do next. The air, stripped of the phantom scents of popcorn and caramel, was now cold and damp, smelling of wet earth and decay, a scent that reminded them horribly of Black Hollow.
They were in a part of the park that felt older, more neglected. The cheerful colors of the main midway had given way to muted, peeling paint and rust-stained metal. The few lights that worked cast long, skeletal shadows that seemed to writhe at the edge of their vision.
“I liked the loud part better,” Jasper whispered, his voice sounding like a cannon shot in the stillness. “The loud part didn’t feel like it was actively staring at us.”
He was right. Every dark doorway, every shuttered game stall, every silent, motionless ride felt like a pair of eyes following their every move. The carnival was no longer a chaotic playground; it had become a patient predator.
“We keep moving,” Raven said, her voice low but firm. She was bruised and shaken, but the ride had ignited a spark of anger in her that was burning away the fear. “It’s just another game. We beat the funhouse, we survived the coaster. We can beat this.”
They pressed forward, walking down a narrow path flanked by skeletal trees whose branches clawed at the night sky. Unlike the rest of the carnival, this area felt more integrated with the forest, as if the woods were slowly reclaiming the man-made structures. The path ended abruptly, blocked by a massive, gothic-style gate.
It was a monstrous work of iron, at least twenty feet high, its bars twisted into thorny, vine-like patterns. The entire structure was covered in intricate, repeating carvings of apples—apples on the vine, sliced apples, and apples with serpents coiled around them. At the very top, two massive iron apples formed the gate’s crest, their surfaces pitted and black with age. It didn’t look like a gate to another section of a theme park; it looked like a gate to Hell. A faint, almost imperceptible hum of energy seemed to radiate from it, a feeling of deep-seated malevolence that made their skin crawl.
“Well,” Ash said, letting out a low whistle. “That’s not subtle.”
Finn walked cautiously toward it, shining his flashlight on the lock. It was a colossal, ancient-looking thing, made of a dark, rusted metal, with no visible keyhole. “There’s no way we’re getting through this,” he declared. “We can’t climb it, and that lock looks like it hasn’t been opened in a century.”
As he spoke, the path behind them began to change. The ground they had just walked over seemed to soften and dissolve, the trees and shuttered stalls melting away into an impenetrable wall of inky blackness, the same swirling fog that had trapped them at the roller coaster. It advanced silently, swallowing the path, until it was only a few yards behind them. Soon, they were trapped on a small island of cobblestone between the encroaching void and the unyielding iron gate.
“So, I guess we’re not going back that way,” Jasper squeaked, his back pressed against the cold iron bars of the gate.
Their attention was drawn to the only other object in the small, enclosed space: a small, brightly colored candy cart. It stood alone in the middle of the area, looking completely out of place against the grim backdrop of the gate. It was painted with cheerful red and white stripes, though the paint was peeling, and one of its wooden wheels was broken. On its canopy, a hand-painted sign displayed a single, enticing phrase:
“One bite to unlock the way.”
The cart was laden with a pyramid of candy apples. They were impossibly perfect, their red candy shells glistening under the dim, flickering lights, looking like giant rubies. They were the most vibrant, most real-looking things they had seen since entering the carnival. Each one had a gnarled, dark stick poked into its core.
The air was suddenly filled with a sharp, sweet scent—the crisp aroma of fresh apples and the sugary smell of a hard candy shell. It was a scent that promised sweetness, a stark contrast to the dread that filled the air.
“No,” Willow said immediately, her voice shaking. “Don’t even think about it. Remember the orchard. Remember the diary. ‘Poisoned gifts.’”
“‘One bite to unlock the way,’” Finn read aloud, his voice laced with suspicion. “It’s a riddle. A trap. The apple is obviously a trigger for something horrible.”
“Or,” Ash countered, ever the pragmatist, “it’s the only way forward. The sign’s pretty clear.”
“‘Clear’ in this place means ‘a clear path to a horrible death’!” Jasper argued. “I’m not eating anything from this nightmare buffet. What if it turns your insides into spiders?”
An intense debate erupted. Finn argued it was a trick, that there had to be another way. Jasper came up with increasingly gruesome theories about what the apple would do to them. Willow, clutching her journal, read passages from folklore about food from faerie realms that trapped mortals forever. Luna stood silently, her eyes closed, trying to read the energy of the objects.
“The apples feel like they’re waiting,” she said softly, opening her eyes. Her pronouncement did little to calm the group’s nerves. “And the gate… the gate is wanting to be fed.”
Raven had been silent throughout the argument, her eyes fixed on the gleaming red apples. She was tired of being herded. Tired of being terrorized. The funhouse had been a mental attack, the roller coaster a physical one. This felt different. This felt like a choice. A test of will. The Shadow Man’s words echoed in her head: It creates a lure for every heart. What was this a lure for? Desperation? Courage? Folly?
She walked to the cart. Her friends fell silent, watching her every move. The sweet, cloying scent of the candy shell was overpowering. She could see her own terrified face reflected in its flawless, shiny surface.
“Raven, don’t,” Willow pleaded.
“We don’t have a choice,” Raven said, her voice resolved. “We’ve tried waiting. We’ve tried running. Now we have to play the game.”
She reached out and picked up one of the apples. It was heavy in her hand, and cold to the touch, unnaturally so. It felt less like fruit and more like a polished stone.
“Give it here,” Ash said, stepping forward. “If anyone’s going to eat a potential poison apple, it’s me. My stomach can handle anything.”
“No,” Raven said, not taking her eyes off the apple. “I got us into this. I was the one who wanted to come to Black Hollow. This one’s on me.” She looked at her friends, at their scared, exhausted faces. This was her responsibility as their leader. To take the risk they were afraid to take.
She raised the apple to her lips. The smooth, hard candy shell was like ice against her skin. With a deep breath, she bit down.
There was a loud, sickening crack that echoed in the silence, like ice breaking. The candy shell shattered. But there was no crisp crunch of an apple beneath. Her teeth sank into something soft, yielding, and horrifically fleshy. A foul, coppery taste filled her mouth as she choked it down, the taste of rot and old blood.
She gagged, pulling the apple away. The pristine red candy shell crumbled away in her hand like dust, revealing what was underneath. It was not a white, crisp apple. It was a lump of gray, rotting pulp, crawling with tiny black worms. The core she had bitten into was a shriveled, blackened mass that looked disturbingly like a human heart. From the bite mark, a thick, black syrup, like crude oil, began to ooze out, dripping down her hand.
A strangled scream escaped Willow’s lips. Jasper made a retching sound.
Raven dropped the horrifying object, which hit the cobblestones with a wet splat. As the black syrup pooled on the ground, the humming from the massive iron gate grew louder, changing in pitch to a low, guttural groan. The sound of grinding metal filled the air as the ancient, keyhole-less lock began to turn on its own.
Slowly, with an agonizing shriek of rusted hinges, the massive gate began to creak open, revealing a dark, fog-shrouded path on the other side.
They had unlocked the way.
But the price was immediate. A cold wind blasted through the newly opened gate, and on it, carried from the darkness beyond, was the sound of deep, triumphant, evil laughter. It was not the giggling of the Hollow Children. This was something older, something deeper. It was the laughter of the carnival’s master, pleased with the offering it had received.
The candy cart beside them began to shake violently. The remaining perfect apples on the cart shriveled and rotted in an instant, their shiny red shells collapsing to reveal the same putrid, worm-eaten pulp. They all burst simultaneously, splattering the cart and the ground with the same foul, black liquid. The sweet scent of apple and candy was gone, replaced by an overwhelming stench of decay that choked the air.
“Go! Now!” Finn yelled, grabbing Raven’s arm and pulling her toward the gate.
They scrambled through the opening, not daring to look back at the ruin of the candy cart. As soon as the last of them, Jasper, was through, the massive gate slammed shut behind them with a deafening, final boom that shook the ground.
They were in a new section of the park, but they were not safe. The evil laughter faded, but the feeling of being watched, of being a pawn in a malicious game, was stronger than ever. Raven stood trembling, scrubbing her hand furiously against her jeans, but she couldn’t get the sticky feeling of the black syrup or the phantom taste of rot out of her mouth. She had consumed a piece of the carnival’s evil. She had taken its poison inside her. And as she stared into the new, unknown darkness ahead, she had a sinking feeling that perhaps she had just sealed all of their fates.
The Legend Of Black Hollow. © 2025 | Horrified Candles. All Rights Reserved.
