One Day at Horrorland

A Smallville Fanfiction

superguy

Overview: A vacation road trip seems the solution to the tensions between Clark and his friends.

But when the band of friends stumbles upon a nightmare-themed amusement park, they get more than they bargained for.

RATED R for Romance/Horror

I rolled down the window and stuck my head out to read the billboard in front of the mechanical monster. I huge red letters it said: WELCOME TO HORRORLAND WHERE NIGHTMARES COME TO LIFE!

-Lizzy Morris,

One Day At Horrorland

CHAPTER ONE:

Lost

The sun glinted off the shiny finish of Lana's SUV. Tiny sparkles of light danced across the hood as the vehicle accelerated. It had been that way all day - the entire trip, for that matter. Non-stop sunlight that threatened to burn grass to a crisp was all that could be seen on the stretch of highway.

Clark was at the wheel. He had been driving the whole trip. All six hours of it. Inside he was cursing himself for doing it. But, overcome with his affection for Lana and the urge to impress her, he had taken the wheel.

Everything was quiet. The only sound that could be heard was the gentle yet aggravating hum of the engine. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Clark checked up on his passengers.

Pete sat directly behind him. He had been reading his comic book the entire trip. Chloe sat in the middle seat, camera in hands as she re-watched the footage she'd shot earlier that day. She accidentally leaned into Pete as she reached into her backpack. Pete didn't seem to mind. Then, on the other side of Chloe was Lex. He seemed out of place with his purple silk shirt and black tux jacket. He had been relatively quiet the entire trip. Pete was mostly responsible for this. He had shown disgust when Lex had arrived at Lana's. Clark hadn't told him that Lex would be joining them. This had stirred up old feelings.

And lastly in the front passenger seat sat Lana. She seemed intent on watching the scenery - which wasn't much. It seemed like forever since they had passed a tree. On both sides of the deserted stretch were fields of brown grass. Every now and then a breeze would create ripples in the sea of grass. This only added to the creepy feeling Clark was getting in his stomach.

After a few minutes the silence was too much for Clark and he spoke up.

"Hey, Chloe," he said as he glanced in the mirror. "How's the documentary going?"

Chloe glanced up from her camera and brushed her feathery blonde hair out of her eyes.

"Not bad," she replied as she tinkered with a few buttons on the side of the camera. "But, I think it'll get more exciting once we get to Universal."

This comment caused Lana to glance back and join in the conversation.

"Yeah. Universal is sounding pretty good right about now."

"When're we going to get there, Clark?" Chloe asked as she closed the camera's view flap.

Clark had no idea. They'd been driving for miles and still no cars had passed them. They hadn't even seen a road sign for hours.

"I'm not sure, Chloe," he replied as he turned on the air conditioning. "Hopefully soon. I'm getting tired of driving."

Pete set down his comic book to chime in.

"Clark, I already told you I'd drive when you got tired."

"No, Pete," Clark rebutted. "It's okay. I don't want to waste time stopping. I don't know how much gas we're going to have left before we get there."

Pete seemed dissatisfied, but went along with it anyway.

There was a long silence before anyone else spoke. But Chloe broke the tension this time.

"Man, this is boring. Lana, would you turn on the radio, please?"

Lana shrugged and turned the volume dial.

"I'm not sure which stations are which…so…"

But the radio was full of static. Each channel she tried was nothing but static.

"Try 97.9," Chloe suggested, but that too was nothing but static. "98.7." Static.

Lex's voice rose over the din, surprising everyone.

"Try 95.9."

Lana watched him, locking a stare. Her fingers found the station, but yet again, static.

"This is crazy!" Pete exclaimed as he gripped the back of Clark's and Lana's seats and leaned forward. "We're so in the middle of nowhere that we aren't even getting reception for the radio!"

"If you want," Lex started, "I can call mapquest for directions. I've got my cell -"

"Lex, we're not lost." Clark cut in as he pressed down on the accelerator. "Look - there's a turnoff. This probably leads to a city." He hoped.

"Finally!" Chloe said as she reopened her camera. She turned it so that it was facing her. "Hello eager fans of the Chloe Chronicles. Now that we're finally back on track, I'm updating. Our quest to make it to Universal Studios is on its way once again. We've just turned off onto an exit which should lead us…somewhere."

She glanced up at Clark. He was busy watching the road.

"Clark, how long have we been driving for?"

Clark thought for a minute, then looked down at his watch. "About seven hours."

"Man, we should be there by now. Don't you think?"

"Calm down, Chloe," Lex said with a grin. "There's a billboard up ahead. See?"

Chloe set down her camera to look out the window. There was indeed a billboard up ahead. It was strangely shaped and hard to make out. They had to wait until they got closer to see what it said. Chloe gasped as she aimed her camera at it.

The sign was enormous. All white with red lettering on it. Drips of red paint seemed to have run off of the letters, all in capital letters. The sign said ENJOY A STAY AT HORRORLAND - WHERE NIGHTMARES COME TO LIFE! Next Mile.

"What the -" Lana said as she rolled down her window, allowing a breeze of parched air to waft into the front.

"Cool!" Pete said as he leaned across Chloe and Lex to look out at the billboard. It was simple - but sounded cool. There were scratch marks all over the board. It was as if something with large talons had ripped at the wood, peeling the white paint behind the writing.

"What in the world is Horrorland?" Lana asked as she glanced back at Lex. Lex shrugged.

"I've never heard of it," he replied as he unbuttoned the top two buttons on his silk shirt. The heat from outside was starting to get to all of them.

"We'll soon find out, won't we?" Chloe asked as she panned the camera around to look at all of them. "Can we go to it, Clark?"

Clark gazed at her excited eyes. Her grin was contagious because he too started to smile, as did Pete. Pete was smiling for a different reason, though.

"What about Universal?" Clark asked as the camera aimed at him. "I thought we all wanted to go there? Besides, Lex already said he'd pay for half of our expenses if we went there with him…"

Lex shrugged. "Horrorland sounds pretty good after driving seven hours, Clark. We could at least stop there and ask for directions to Universal."

"Yeah!" Chloe said excitedly. "This place sounds like wall of weird material! Could we please go there, Clark? Even if it's only for five minutes?"

Clark didn't really want to stop at a place called Horrorland, but shrugged anyway. "I suppose we could. I mean, it's on the way -"

"Aaaaaahhhh!"

Lana let out an enormous scream as she fell back into Clark, pointing at the window. Everyone looked over at the billboard. Something was peering at them from behind it. Two large horns - reminiscent of ram horns poked out from behind a dark green face full of wrinkles and two large yellow eyes glared back at them.

Clark watched in horror as two large claws reached over the top of the sign and dug their nails into the wood finish. Dragging them up, he watched as the paint peeled before their very eyes.

A monster was behind the billboard, preparing to tear their flesh.