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Authors: Todd Loyd

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BOOK: Dark Ride
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Chapter 27

The fact that Amy is not in the room confuses Jack.
Where is she? he wonders.

“Okay, this is not good,” Scotty informs the others.

“Understatement of the year,” Mason sourly snaps.

“She's not here?” Scotty continues.

“That's enough, Captain Obvious. We can see that. We know this is not good, we know Amy is not here, we know we're in deep trouble, we know something—”

“Okay, Mason, I think he's had enough. You're not helping.”

“All right, Jack, since you're the one who knows everything about this ride, where did she go?”

“I don't know,” Jack answers disturbed. “Well…she had to leave this room. Probably when the power shut off.”

“Why didn't she wait for us?” Scotty wonders aloud.

“I don't know,” Jack answers again.

“You don't know much, do you?”

Cross at Mason's attitude, Jack snaps back, “None of us know what happened in here! All we know is that Amy is gone.”

He tells himself to remain calm and says, “Look, she probably just walked over to the next room.” Jack takes long strides to the door to the next room and tries to open it. “This door won't give just like the last one.”

Jack thinks,
Amy where are you?
Mason starts, “Maybe she got out before the doors were—”

“You guys hear that?” asks Jack.

“Yeah. Music,” says Scotty who looks in the air for the source.

Pointing above Mason's head, Jack asks, “Where did that come from?

“The music?” Mason cocks his head listening.

“No. That.”

Scotty and Mason look up to see an illuminated “Enter” sign glowing above a door. C

alliope music floats through the room.

“That's where she went, come on,” commands Jack. He pushes on the crash bar, and the three boys enter the tunnel and amble down the dim hallway to the far door.

“I bet she walked down this hallway,” Scotty suggests. “That door probably is an exit.”

Jack nods in hopeful agreement to Scotty's observation. He opens the door, and the boys are stunned by the sudden appearance of a new room.

“I have never seen this one before,” says Jack, who looks around, marveling.

“Neither have I,” adds Mason.

“You think this is like some cast aside part of the ride they don't use anymore?” Scotty asks.

“It has to be,” Jack says.

Suddenly, the narrator mannequin speaks.

“The shaken boys have made a quite a blunder
In their haste for items to plunder.
The mistake had been made for personal glory
Now they must make amends to finish the story.
But they cannot go back: the girl is lost.
Must find her at once, but at what cost?”

For a few seconds, none of the boys speak. There is an uncomfortable silence.

Breaking the tension, Jack offers, “Okay, that's bizarre.”

“It was talking about us,” Scotty, eyes wide open, suggests.

“Oh, Scotty, that's garbage,” Mason counters, dismissing the rhyme.

Jack ponders the meaning of the words. “No, Scotty is right. How did it know about us—and our props and Amy?”

“He, or, uh, it doesn't. It's just a coincidence. Has to be,” declares Mason, who appears to be trying to convince himself of the truth of his own words.

Jack walks up to the narrator slowly. He's apprehensive that the mannequin might actually be real. Glaring over the shoulder of the fake man, he, for the first time, examines the large book. Jack has always wondered whether the creators of the ride had taken the time write words in the large books, but there it is on the paper—the exact rhyme that had blared over the cracking speakers.

“What's with the house?” Mason quips.

“Oh,” answers Scotty, “I imagine it's a scene from Hansel and Gretel. You know, the German fairy tale recorded first by the Brothers Grimm. It was—”

“Okay, Scotty, I get the point. What do we do now, fearless leader?” asks Mason while staring at Jack.

This situation surprises Jack more than a little. He knows the ride well, but this is new territory, and Mason is actually ready to take orders.

“She can't be far. There are a set of doors over this way. She must have gone through here.”

A munching sound catches Jack's attention. He asks, “Scotty, what are you doing?”

“It's candy, real candy.”

Disgusted, Mason mocks a puking lurch, then says, “Oh, you're sick. You have no idea how long it's been sitting here.”

“No, it's good! It tastes fresh. Here, take a bite.”

Scotty pulls a peppermint stick from the frame of a tiny door.

“No thanks, I'm good. What's gotten into you? I can't believe you're just going to eat that.” But Mason actually finds the whole affair not surprising. Scotty is pretty well-known for his cast iron stomach.

“I'm nervous. I get hungry when I'm nervous. Plus, I was curious.”

“I don't care how curious I am, I am not going to go munching on some house in a creepy dark ride,” Mason chides. Then, he remembers something and asks, “Hey, what happened to Hansel and Gretel when they ate off the house?”

Between bites of candy, Scotty says, “A witch came and imprisoned them in a cage to fatten them up so she could cook them in—”

Scotty stops chewing for a moment when he realizes how similar his situation is to Hansel and Gretel. He looks around. Jack and Mason, too, are scanning the room, but the coast is clear.

Scotty says, “I don't see any witches,” and he continues chowing down.

Still, Jack is growing nervous about the whole situation. “Guys, something about this room seems different. It's ‘off,' you know?”

“What do you mean, Jack?” grumbles Scotty while munching on a piece of red licorice from the window sill.

“I don't know, it just feels…odd.” And after another pause, he says, “We need to find Amy, and then we should get outta here.”

Chapter 28

The troubles in the Dark Ride have caused Clyde headaches for three days. He wondered why he had not simply closed the Enchanted Forrest down, but the answer to that question is obvious. In spite of the trouble, it is a popular attraction, and he hated the thought of shutting her down
before fans had an opportunity for a farewell ride. In fact, he was willing to fight the ride all night if he had to just to let kids like Jack have one more moment. This perseverance had resulted in at least fifteen trips to the large breaker box located in the rear of the Jack and Jill Room. There, he would simply jiggle a few wires and flip a couple of switches, and the ride would groan back to life. However, Clyde was beginning to think that what he was doing at the box had nothing to do with the power coming back on at all.

Still, Clyde heads for the box. His flashlight cuts through the low-lit rooms, but as he reaches his destination, the light from his flashlight begins to waiver and then goes out. Clyde thinks,
I changed those batteries just yesterday. Cheap off-brand. You get what you pay for.

There is no reason for Clyde to continue. The emergency lights in the ride would not give enough of a glow for him to be able to see the components of the box.
Great. Just great
, he thinks.

In one last attempt at light, Clyde bangs the flashlight against his open palm, but nothing happens. After unscrewing the base of the light, he yanks out the batteries and replaces them in a different order inside the chamber. He knows it is probably futile, but he tries anyway. This, also, has no effect, and Clyde thinks,
All right, bub, what ya gonna do now? Go back to the kids? Fool with the box anyways? Maybe I can get Gwen to bring her flashlight in, get the power back on, and get those kids on their way.

Once again, Clyde second guesses his decision to let the kids stay behind, but he assures himself that he made the right move. Since there were four of them, he told himself nothing was going to happen. There is safety in numbers, he concludes. He decides to get the light from Gwen, so he pulls his radio from his waistband and holds the instrument to his mouth.

“Gwen, you out there?”

After a pause, she answers, “Go ahead, Clyde.”

“My flashlight is dead. You got yours on ya?”

“What's going on in there, Clyde? Whatcha need a flashlight for?”

“Well, I can't see anything in the box unless I have more light. Bring yours in here.”

“I don't understand, Clyde. Did you get out of the train?”

“Gwen, the power's out. I just—”

“Clyde, what are you talking about? The ride has been running fine.”

“Gwen, I assure you, the power is out in here.”

There is another pause, and Gwen says, “Clyde, I don't understand. The carts are rolling on the tracks, the music is on, and all the strobes out here are flashing fine. I expected you guys to roll out here any minute.”

“Okay, Gwen, this isn't funny. There are four kids in here stuck up in the Giant's lair.”

No response comes from Gwen. Clyde grows agitated at the young employee.

“Gwen! Gwen, come back!”

Looking at the radio, he sees the battery light has changed color to red. He tells himself,
This is getting ridiculous.
Violently, Clyde bangs the radio against his hand, snaps off the back of the radio, and flips the square battery out of place. After waiting ten seconds, he replaces it into its position. A green light glows on top of the radio for a second but then switches to red.

“Blast!” says Clyde, who consoles himself a little by thinking,
At least I'll never have to fool with these stinkin' radios again after this weekend
. But then a twinge of finality hits him, and he regrets the thought. He is actually thankful to have been kept busy all night because the problems of the ride have been somewhat of a distraction from the reality that his life in the park is about to end.

Clyde tells himself,
Calm down, old fellow. We've been through worse than this. Maybe I'll just mess with that box, light or no light.

Turning back to the area where the box hangs on the wall, he chuckles to himself and thinks,
I guess someone's having one last joke on the old man.

Chapter 29

There has been no sound from the boys and the last few minutes have been tense. Amy is waiting, nervously biting her fingernails and cracking her knuckles—a habit inherited from her mom. She begins to think about the words of the narrator, and as she wonders,
What did he mean by peril?
The hair on the back of her neck begins to tingle. But, she consoles herself by thinking,
Come on, Amy, there's no way he was talking about you
.

The only sound is the dull hum of the emergency lights. Tracks on the floor end abruptly at the gingerbread house. At first, Amy guesses that the structure is some sort of hub where they keep extra carts but then realizes it is too small. With the mysterious disappearance of the door, she decides to move on and takes the only set of doors available to her.

She finds herself in another room. Standing just inside the doors of the new space, she takes inventory of the surroundings and scans for another door that could get her out of here.

“Lucky, do you get the feeling we're just getting more lost? When we see the boys, I'm telling Mason you're with me. Would you like that? Serves him right, troublemaker.”

Amy wonders if the power had come back on. The new room looks alive. Bird sounds and chirping cricket noises reverberate in the room, and there are dozens and dozens of trees.

Taking the stick she acquired from the bonfire, she strikes the side of one of the larger trees and says,
Man, that thing is solid. Whoever designed this room outdid themselves.
At this point, Amy's neck begins to tingle. An overwhelming sensation that someone is following her envelopes her. She can't explain how she knows, she just does. It is the same feeling she got every time she played hide-and-go-seek with her sisters at home. She thinks,
Maybe it's the boys—or Clyde? But, what if it isn't?
If she had not already been scared, she probably would have simply called out to the pursuer, but the words of the narrator, “Realize her peril and at once take flight,” had made an impression. She tells herself,
Hide, Amy—now!

A particularly large tree trunk is on the right side of the room. Quickly, Amy and Lucky duck behind its cover, and Amy hears the doors she entered quietly open again followed by clicks on the floor and then the sound of sniffing and panting. She realizes this is not the boys and certainly not Clyde. While trembling and gripping the stick, Amy thinks,
Do I dare sneak a peek?
She hears deep breaths and more panting coming closer to her.

She asks herself,
Should I run? No, wait, whoever it is will—

The panting stops. There are no more clicks on the floor.

Did they leave?
Amy wonders. She decides to take a quick glance and stands upright and carefully looks around the corner of the tree. The first thing she sees is a pair of eyes—enormous green eyes staring directly at her. Amy dashes toward doors at the rear of the room. However, before she can makes much headway, her pursuer cuts off her path to the door. They stand looking directly at each other in full view. In front of Amy is the most hideous creature she has ever laid eyes on, a wolf standing upright wearing a black coat and a stovetop black hat. It has wild eyes and a gaping mouth full of awful fangs. Amy thinks it can't be real, that this has to be a prank.

With her throat full of bile, Amy can't scream. Instead she yells, “What do you want?”

“You.”

The eerie voice of her costumed tormentor shakes her to her core, and she asks, “Why?”

In a thick snarling accent, it answers, “Because you are the girl and I am the Wolf. You are what I have always craved.”

The wolf steps closer.

“Stop right there. I don't understand.” Amy thinks,
This has to be a prank?
and then asks, “What's going on? Are you an employee? Why do you want…. ?”

The wolf does not stop.

Amy contemplates,
Run? No, I can
't outrun it.

Suddenly, with wild abandon and fury, the wolf snarls and leaps at Amy. Her only option available is to defend herself. Amy drops Lucky to the floor and instinctively swings the stick, which cracks against the attacker's gaping jaws.

It makes a hideous yelp followed by an ear-splitting howl.

Amy thinks,
Run. Don't look back—just run. The doors are just ahead.

She runs.

BOOK: Dark Ride
7.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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