Dillon Hunt And The Desert Oasis Resort by Chad Stewart (books suggested by bill gates txt) 📕

in what appeared to be blood, and there were ghostly sounds coming from different directions as Dillon approached. Of course Dillon knew that this was all part of the show. He had been in one of these houses before when he and his family visited the amusement park that wasn’t far from the town they lived in. Still, due to recent circumstances, he couldn’t help but be a little on edge.

He entered and the place was dark at first then there was a flash of light and something whipped across his path. He couldn’t make it out but figured that it was probably someone pretending to be a ghost. Then the lights came on and flickered in intermittent patterns simulating an electrical short. The hair on the back of Dillon’s neck stood up. The mood was creepy. The walls were stained with what appeared to be blood and there were fingernail marks down the one side, portraying as though someone was sucked into the house against their will. There was a musty old smell in the air, and he could hear really faint sounds of high-pitched shrieks and low growls.

As Dillon walked down the corridor he felt something buzz his head from behind and continue on down the hall. He twitched and jumped to the side, eyes searching the gloom. “Must’ve been a simulated bat,” he reasoned with himself. With a swallow, he pushed on.

The sounds were getting louder: women screams, low guttural growls of some unseen creature, and howling of souls being tormented.

He got to the end of the hall and turned the corner. As he did, a hand came out of the wall and touched his shoulder. He jumped and launched himself against the opposite wall. Two more hands came out and grabbed him. He pulled away; his heart pounding furiously. It’s just a ride, he told himself as he tried to keep his distance from the edges of the hallway as he jogged away from where the hands were. He hit something sticky: spider webs! As he pulled them from his face he noticed that the hall opened up to the top and the path wound down. At the top of the opened hall was a huge spider. He let out a shriek and jumped back, suddenly having the image in his head about the spiders he and Gwen were running from in his dreams. In its legs appeared to be the body of a person that was being wound up in its web. He rubbed his eyes then looked closer at it. No. He could tell that it was definitely a fake by the way the thing moved. His breath came easier and his heart slowed as he calmed himself down. “Get it together Dillon. This is just a ride,” he said aloud to himself.

Dillon put his head down and ran under the spider. As he came out the other side he thought he saw movement of something off to the side. He noticed a large vent at the base of the wall to his left and swore he saw movement from within, and a flicker of yellow. He didn’t stay there long enough to figure it out and instead ran to the end of the hall where there was a closed door. Dillon tried to open it but it was locked. As he shook it he heard large footsteps coming from behind him. He glanced back to see a massive guy who had to have been at least seven feet tall and built like a body builder! His face appeared to be zombie-like: dead and rotting. And his clothes were tattered, blood-satined, and barely hanging on. He lumbered toward Dillon methodically. In his massive arms he held a wicked looking axe. It was huge with a serrated edge and had a point on it that was probably a foot long with cruel looking barbs all over it. Dillon worked the door harder. The zombie was almost there. He tugged and pushed. He glanced back and saw that the zombie was raising his axe.

“This is just a ride,” he said to himself again. “Come on!” he screamed at the door.

The zombie had his axe fully overhead. Was this just a ride? Dillon began to question himself. He pushed hard on the door. It flung open and Dillon fell into the room beyond just as the zombie’s axe came down. He heard the thud of it hit the floor and the door slammed shut on its own. Dillon breathed a sigh of relief, then pulled himself up.

He noticed that he was in a octagonal-shaped room. Each side of the room had full-length mirrors on them which reached all the way to the roof; about ten feet from the floor. As he looked into the mirrors he noticed something strange: there were images of disembodied people coming up behind him. He turned around, but no one was actually there. Now looking in the opposite mirror, he noticed the same thing. The figures were of attractive women who were seemingly moving their hands over his head and shoulders. It was weird because he started to actually feel as though there was something touching him. He swatted where he felt the sensations but nothing changed. This went on for a moment as he looked into different mirrors. As he stared into one the woman looked at him, then her eyes went red, and she bared some massive fangs and hissed at him! He could hear the sound of the hissing as though it was right on top of him. Dillon jumped back and looked somewhere else, but that woman did the same thing. He spun around and almost screamed out. It was as though they were taunting him. This went on for what seemed an eternity. Eventually Dillon closed his eyes. After a few seconds the sounds of horror stopped and he could feel that the entire floor he was on was moving up. He opened his eyes to see the mirrors fade from view as he ascended. Before the last of the mirrors disappeared, he caught the glimpse of something yellow. His heart began to race.

It was at this point that the young boy wanted off the ride, but he knew there was no way back. He had to complete what he started. The floor came to stop in a creepy looking, low lit, ancient library. There were bookshelves against three of the walls, a desk was over to the right, and there appeared to be a body laying on the desk with a knife sticking out of its back.

“Great …” Dillon found himself say aloud as he noticed the body.

He looked around the room and noted that the door was behind him. He had no desire to check out the real-looking body! He just turned right for the door. As he reached for the handle a knife landed in the door, missing his head by inches! He spun around to see a ghoulish-looking creature crouched on the desk beside the dead man. He was flipping another knife in his hand. Dillon went for the handle again. Another knife slammed into the door. Dillon’s heart was pounding. Mostly because he was now wondering if this was part of the ride or if this guy was actually trying to kill him!

He quickly grabbed the handle and pulled. “Of course!” he lamented out loud. “Why would the stupid door open in a haunted house?”

The ghoul smiled as he flipped another knife in the air. Then the book shelves started to moved back and forth and books started to fly all over the place. Dillon noticed that there was a passage behind one of the shelves. He ran for the opening. A knife landed near him and the shelf closed over the passageway. It began to open again and another knife landed near him. He had to dodge some of the flying books as well. One hit him in the arm and he noted that it felt more like styrofoam than an actual book. This helped him remember that it was just a ride. The passage opened again and he launched himself through. It closed behind him leaving him in the dark for a second, then the lights came on; a really dull red light that barely lit up the hall.

Okay, I’ve had enough of this, he thought to himself. Time for the ride to end.

The long hallway looked rather plain. It appeared to be built of rotting wood that could fall apart at any moment. There were three windows on each side of the hallway which had tattered sheets hanging across them that were swaying in, what seemed to be, a breeze from the outside. At the end of the hallway there was a large hole in the wall with a big sign over it that read “Escape!” The sign was huge, appeared to be written in blood, and was glowing brightly in the dimly lit passage. But the eeriest thing was that the faint sounds of high-pitched shrieks and low growls had disappeared, leaving him looking down the long hall with just the sound of the breeze coming through the windows.

As Dillon took his first step he heard the floor boards creek loudly under his weight. As he walked slowly down the hallway he began to hear ghoulish screams and groans coming from the hole. “Oh that’s better!” he said to himself sarcastically. Then he saw movement to the left at that top of the wall. There was another vent. As he stared at the vent for a moment he suddenly saw two yellow dots appear, almost like eyes staring at him.

He turned from the vent and started to pick up the pace as he went, not wanting to draw this out anymore. When he walked by one of the windows he moved the sheet aside slightly and noticed that the windows were barred. He also noted the many people strolling up and down the boardwalk beside the haunted house. They appeared to be having fun going from ride to ride, game to game. How he wanted to be outside again! He refocussed on the exit and increased his pace even more. Suddenly a trap door opened from above and a body that was strung up with a rope around his neck came crashing down in front of him. It was pale, covered in blood, and seemed very realistic. Dillon jumped back and another one dropped from behind him. They began to extend their arms.

Dillon dodged around the one in front and another two dropped. He threw himself against the wall and squirmed by them. He was only a few yards away from the escape hole now. He rushed toward it and another two dropped before he got there but he burst through, trying not to touch them as much as he could. He knew in his head that they weren’t real but he couldn’t resist being freaked out in the moment. His emotions took charge and not his logic.

He made it to the hole and was about to climb inside when he heard a sickly hissing sound come from behind. He knew he shouldn’t look