DISCLAIMER: NOT MINE. I OWN NOTHING.

KISS ME

oXo

CHAPTER THREE

CLARK

When I was a kid, my family took a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. It's this place where everything's like Colonial times—horses and buggies on unpaved streets. There's stuff like blacksmith shops, too. My dad loves stuff like that. He fits right in. Like he's from another time. My friend Pete Ross – who had come along on vacation with us – and I had fun with the employees because if you ask them stuff like where's the closest Starbucks, they act like they don't know what you're talking about. But it got weird after a while. You wondered if they seriously didn't know it was the twenty-first century.

The place on the other side of the hedge is sort of like that. I mean, not just old. Pretty much everything in Europe is old and falling apart and important, but this place takes historic preservation to a whole new level.

"Do you think it's, like, a theme park – sorta like Disney World?" I say to Oliver.

"No one here."

"Maybe it's just not open yet. Or closed. Is today Sunday?"

The streets are unpaved, and even if they were, they're barely wide enough to get one of those little Smart Cars down. But the transportation here is horses, judging from how many are tied to hitching posts – sleeping. There's not a McDonald's or an Old Navy anywhere, only one building with ALEHOUSE painted on it in peeling, old-fashioned lettering. And the plants look neglected. Some are overgrown, but a lot of stuff is bare, like the grass died many years ago.

"Definitely not the beach." Oliver starts pushing through the brambles. "And not a topless German chick in sight."

The brambles have settled into the same shape they were before we went through them. I do not want to go through those bushes again. Who knows what will happen.

Oliver must think the same thing because he steps back. "Maybe we should eat lunch first."

Something about this place is really freaking me out – making me feel really weird. This entire trip turned "Wall of Weird" – as my friend Chloe would say – as soon as we entered Germany. "Let's wait for a while. Who knows how long it will take to get back to civilization…and sandwiches."

Oliver thinks about it and gets this worried look on his face. "Okay. Then we should get out of here. Before whatever made you bleed does to us what it did to this place." He starts pushing through the brambles again.

"Wait! Maybe we should start looking for a different way out instead of being sliced and diced again. Or at least see if anyone around here has a chain saw."

"You see any people here, dude?"

"There's horses. And they're tied up. That means there are people somewhere because they didn't tie themselves up."

"Maybe they did! Clark, look at you! You look like the chain saw in this place is wielded by Leatherface and he's chasing you all over Texas. You and I both know that's not possible if those were ordinary bushes! There is something majorly weird going on here."

The weird thing is…I feel like I need to stay. I feel like I'm supposed to be here. I feel like I need to keep looking…for something. "We should look for them."

Oliver glances around. "If there's people here, they're probably dead. And we may be, too, if we don't get out of here. Clark –"

"Oliver –"

"Fine. If you say so. Seems as good a day to die as any."

"I do."

He shrugs but follows me. We walk down the street, which is really more of a pathway with weeds and stuff growing on both sides. I point to the alehouse. "Let's try in there."

He nods. "Beer. Good thinking. If we get drunk we won't feel a thing when the voodoo vines strangle us to death and the horses wake up and eat our corpses."

The alehouse has a porch in front of it. When I put my foot on the wood platform, it squeaks and moves up into a step under me like an escalator. I step up again, and the wood platform quivers and shakes and rises up into another step. Then another step takes shape.

"This is really weird, Clark. You think maybe the whole town died or something, and this is the Stairway to Heaven?"

"Oliver –"

"What! The steps are freaking moving! Steps aren't supposed to move. They don't even move back in Kansas – unless Zatanna is passing through Metropolis with her traveling show and wreaking havoc in her wake."

"Aren't you the least bit curious?"

"No. Absolutely not. I don't wanna end up like that nosy cat."

"Well I am. And cats have nine lives."

I remember when we went to Colonial Williamsburg, they told us about all the diseases people got in those days, like yellow fever, Bubonic plague, and scarlet fever. Pete thought the guide said "Blue-bonic" and joked that I should have lived hundreds of years ago – all the primary colored diseases were right up my alley, which I didn't find the least bit funny – I like how I dress. But now it's kind of freaky thinking about some sickness taking out the whole town. Anyway, maybe Oliver is right – not necessarily that everyone died and we're next – but maybe a lot did and the rest decided to get out of Dodge. And we should, too. But…I feel like…I haven't found what I'm looking for yet.

So I say, "That's stupid. There's no abandoned town in Europe. If there were, someone would find it and turn it into a museum. They'd widen the streets and bring people here by the busload and torture kids from America on school tours."

"Dude, you know this isn't right."

I stare at my surroundings – the haunted hedge, the sleeping stallions – and I feel it. "Of course it is," I whisper. "It's never felt so right. Everything is finally…right."

And to prove how right I am, I walk to the door.

Even though I know I'm doing the right thing, I still can't bring myself to go in, so I look through the window. It's easy because there's no glass in it, and I remember that a lot of places didn't have glass windows in the old days, only shutters to pull down at night or if it got cold. I can't see much. There's no light inside and nothing moving. We stand there so long that I'm almost expecting someone—possibly a ghost—to come up behind us and ask what we're doing here. So when Oliver says, "Come on!" I jump about three feet.

He laughs. "Who's afraid now, huh?"

"Shut up." I push open the door.

The room is dark. There are lanterns, but none are lit. It takes my eyes a minute to get used to it with my vision still messed up. Even so, I see there are people there, sitting on barstools, but they're…really quiet. No music, no laughter, no talking, no movement. When my eyes adjust and my pupils finally dilate, I realize why the people aren't moving at all. They're dead.

But they can't be dead. If they died long ago in some plague or massacre, their horses wouldn't still be tied outside, and they'd be reduced to skeletons.

I take a deep breath and let it out real slow, prepping myself to walk around and look at their faces. That's when it happens.

One of them snores.

"What the hell was that?" Oliver says. He's hugging the door.

"It sounded like a snore."

"A snore? Like they're sleeping? All of them?"

"I…think so." I walk over to the side of one guy. He snores, and I see his stomach moving in and out. He's alive. He's definitely alive.

I tap his shoulder. "Hey, bud."

He doesn't answer. I shake him harder and yell louder. "Hey! Buddy! Hey, man!"

Now that it's that obvious they're not zombies or anything, Oliver steps forward and starts shaking a different guy. "We're sorry to bother you, sir, but we're looking for directions."

Nothing.

There are five guys on stools and the bartender asleep on the floor. Oliver and I spend five minutes shaking, yelling, pulling, and practically dancing with them. They're definitely alive, but they're totally…asleep. Weird.

"I think we need to try another place," I tell Oliver.

There's only one person at the next shop, an old lady asleep with a bunch of falling-apart hats on stands. We shake her, but she doesn't wake.

We try three more places, and they're all the same. Everyone is in a dead sleep.

"Freaky," Oliver says when we step out of the grocer's. There was nothing in the bins, not a single shred of lettuce. The grocer was napping on the floor. "Dude, can we get out of here now? This place is just…wrong."

I sigh. "But it feels so...right."

When I turn the corner, I stop.

"Whoa!"

It's a castle. Not a modern-looking one like Buckingham Palace, with electricity and toilets (when we visited it, the plumber was there—his truck said THE DIPLOMAT OF DRAIN AND SEWER CLEANING—and Oliver and I had fun joking about what Charles had done to stop up the drains), but a real castle – the kind that comes in a play set with a bunch of plastic knights and horses. It could even have a dungeon. That would be freaking awesome.

"Check it out." I start toward it.

"Hey, wrong way. That is so wrong. Do not walk toward the creepy castle, Clark. Let's turn around. I want to go back."

"Suit yourself." I walk faster. "But I have the sandwiches."

"Hey!" Oliver starts running after me, but he's got on his Adidas soccer slides. I have on my Timberlands, so I can outrun him through the woods.

The castle is farther than I thought because it's bigger than I thought. It's big enough to put a whole city in. I finally reach it about ten minutes later. There's a moat around it full of brown, sludgy water.

"Oops. Too bad. They're closed. Let's go. Maybe we can try Euro Disney." Oliver yells from way back.

"It's Disneyland Paris, dork. And we already went to France. I think." I walk around the perimeter until I see where the drawbridge is. It's open, and there's a castle entrance at the end of it. "See? They're open." I start across.

"Are you sure you should do that? The queen might yell 'off with his head!'"

"Does this look like Wonderland to you?"

"I don't know what land this is! But I don't wonder if we should climb back out of the rabbit hole – I know we need to right now! We're not supposed to be here!"

"I'm supposed to be here!" I fill my lungs with air and exhale in frustration. "I'm supposed to be here. I just…know I am." I nudge his shoulder with mine. "Come on, Oliver. What are we going to do? Go crawling back to Maddie and beg forgiveness for bailing on the small crows? This is the first interesting thing we've seen in the past three weeks. The past three weeks has lead us here – lead me here. I'm supposed to be here."

At the door, I see two guards. Surprise—they're sleeping. I grasp the handle and pull on it. It opens with a loud squeal. I step inside.

We're in this huge room with three-story ceilings.

"It's like the ballroom in Shrek 2," Oliver says. "Great. Guess that means there's ogres."

I roll my eyes and hand him a sandwich. It lights up his eyes and lightens the load, and we've still got six or seven more. To be safe, I hold on to the beer.

"Hey, look." I point at a suit of armor standing in a corner. "Let's try it on. We could be a knight in shining armor."

"Dude, that's all you. This is your story. I wanna click my heels three times and go back to Kansas."

I slowly, gingerly lift the bill of the knight's face mask, just in case there's a body inside.

It's empty.

I breathe out. "Maybe this castle won't be as freaky as the rest of the town. It feels different in here. It feels real. It feels right." It feels right. I'm supposed to be here.

All the castles and towers we've been to, you're either not allowed to look around inside at all, or if you are, you just get to stand behind velvet ropes and see stuff in climate-controlled boxes. This place is real. This place is right. I start down a hallway that goes out to the side. I look in the first room. "Hey."

"What is it? The Highway to Hell?"

"Funny."

"The kitchen?"

"Better."

It's an actual throne room like in the movies, and there are people in it – peasants perhaps – waiting to see the king or queen. They're not here, though.

"They're dead asleep like everyone else in this town," Oliver says.

"But look."

Two guards sleep off to one side. Each has a pillow in his lap. On each pillow is a crown encrusted with champagne diamonds, sapphires, and rubies. It's just like the stuff we saw in the Tower of London – only we won't get arrested and deported and banned from the country if we touch it.

"I'm trying one on," I say.

"Just 'cause the primary colored crown called to you? What if they wake up and hang you from the gallows or draw and quarter you?"

"We've practically stomped on these people and they haven't woken up yet."

Still, when I take the crown off its velvet pillow, I almost expect an alarm to go off or something. None does, and I place the crown on my head. A shiver passes through my body and my head starts to spin. "How…um…" I shake my head trying to clear it. "How do I look?"

Oliver laughs. "You know you look ridiculous in that, right. I could hook you up with a good jeweler…maybe try some emeralds…"

"You're just jealous. Try the other."

"It's a girl's crown." Still, he puts it on. After a while, Oliver says, "We should totally take them."

I roll my eyes and shake my head. "Can you not make it through the day without stealing from the rich?"

We put the crowns back and go into more rooms. On the third floor, there's a bunch of rooms with nothing in them but dresses.

"Where's the naked chick that owns all the dresses?" Oliver says.

"Maybe she's sleeping, too."

When we reach maybe the tenth room of dresses, Oliver says, "Seriously? All the naked girls we've seen in museums on this tour and we can't see a real one?"

I'm about to tell him to shut up when I notice this weird little staircase going off to the side. I saw a turret on the castle when we were outside. I wonder if this goes up to it.

"Let's go there first," I say.

Before Oliver can protest, I start upstairs. I didn't think the staircase was very tall, but it curves around and goes higher. Then it curves again and again.

When we finally reach the top, the door is closed. I open it and find a room with nothing but…a girl.

The most beautiful girl I've ever seen. More beautiful than any of my girlfriends. More beautiful than Kyla. More beautiful than Alicia. Even more beautiful than Lana.

She's…perfect.

And asleep on the floor.

And fully clothed.

Oliver finally makes it up the staircase and reaches the door behind me. "Seriously, dude! After all that and she's not even topless?"