Dark Ride (24 page)

Chapter 83

Mason fights off Scotty's hold on him and says, “What're you talking about? It's a little girl.”

“Hans Christian Anderson,” Scotty whispers.

“Hands, wrist, and who?” Mason asks.

This time, Scotty enunciates, “Hans Christian Anderson.”

Mason blows through his lips, making a dismissive sound, and says, “So what?”

“Well,” Scotty says, “if you knew anything about children's literature, which you don't, you would know that in most of Anderson's tales somebody ends up dead.”

Jack likes Scotty's verbal jab against Mason, although this information is unsettling.

Up to this point in the group's conversation, the girl has continued humming. Then suddenly, she strikes a match and goes quiet until it burns out. Afterward, she resumes humming again.

“Um, I'm with Scotty,” Amy states.

Jack gulps and looks around the room, suspecting an attack from some unknown assailant. For the first time, he notices that the ground appears scorched. Also, in clusters around various stumps near the darkened corners of the room, blackened bones are visible.

Jack looks at Scotty, points to the charred remains, and infers, “She burned them, huh?”

Scotty solemnly nods his head until the flick of a match is lit, at which point the group looks over at the girl.

Once again, she asks, “Would you like to buy some matches?”

Jack, wide-eyed, looks at Amy.

“Why would we want to buy matches?” Mason asks dismissively.

Amy and Scotty start backing toward the door, and Amy asks, “Jack?” Leaving?”

“Yes, like now,” Jack answers.

“Would you like to buy some matches?” the girl repeats, but this time there is a little more vigor in her voice.

“Uh, no,” Mason replies firmly.

The girl takes a step toward Mason.

“Give her some money. Give her money!” Scotty chirps.

Jack whips his backpack around a digs through its contents for a dollar bill. Holding it out to the girl, he says, “Here, yes, sold!”

However, the girl's mouth turns down at the corners, and her brow creases in apparent anger.

Jack grabs another dollar and asks, “Is this enough?”

The girl takes another step, and her pale face begins to show a tint of red.

There is obvious rage building inside the girl, and she says, “You should buy some matches.”

Mason demands, “What do you want? He gave you like—”

“The pouch!” Amy says and jabs her hand into Jack's pocket to retrieve what Victor had given to them.

“Hey!” Jack objects, but the small girl is directly in front of him now with her hand on another match. She has started humming again, and her tune sounds forced and foreboding.

The girl strikes a match and raises it before Jack, who lifts a hand instinctively. The flickering flame licks the base of his palm, and he cries
out, “Hey! What do you think…?” Jack pulls his stinging palm back and raises it to his mouth.

Amy raises three small coins from the pouch in front of the girl's face and says, “Here.”

The girl takes her other hand and places her thumb and index finger over the burning match end, snuffing the flame. Then, after lowering both hands, she turns to face Amy and takes the coins. From an unseen pouch in her dress, she produces a small matchbox and hands it to Amy, who in turn gives it to Scotty to place in his cavernous pockets.

In a zombie-like trance, the girl walks over to a stump, sits down, and stares into an empty void.

Jack looks at the bewildered face of Mason and questions, “Now we go?”

“Now we go,” Mason confirms.

The group heads for the doors on the left end of the room. As they pass through them, Amy pauses and looks back at the girl on the stump. She sees the now placid girl strike another match and stare blankly into the flickering flame. Once it burns out, the humming commences again.

“Frère Jacques….”

Chapter 84

Three flashlights spray rays of light across the silent rooms of the Enchanted Forrest. Clyde directs Oliver to go to his right and Colton to his left. Thus far, the search has been fruitless. Within the walls of each room, the search party is met by the same silent rooms with odd shadows caused by the emergency lighting.

As the three park employees enter the room with the giant tables and fireplace, Clyde utters, “This is where I left them.” He recalls that his last words to the teens had been, “Stay in the cart,” but he sees that there is no cart in this room. Sweat pours from his brow, and he looks at the doors that lead to the next room where he last saw Douglas Finch all those years ago.

Clyde glowers intently; his mind is full of dread. He thinks,
Through those doors…. Where had he gone? Where were those kids? This cannot be happening again.

A hand on his shoulder interrupts the old man's thoughts. “What do you think these kids are up to?” asks Oliver.

“I don't know. Let's get moving. Colton, come on.”

Colton is looking at the fireplace. He calls out, “Hey, Clyde, Mr. Sparkman, something is missing here.”

“What is it, kid?”

“Well, there's usually a golden goose on this fireplace.”

“What do you make of that, Clyde?” Oliver questions.

“Just another missing prop. A lot of stuff has been disappearing here lately.” Inside his head, he tries to recall if he had seen the goose earlier that night, but he just cannot remember.
It's probably nothing
, he thinks.

“Come on,” he calls and walks toward the next room.

As soon as he enters, there is an empty cart sitting still in the middle of the room.

“Well,” Oliver notes, “we know they were here at least. Number 732: this is the cart you guys were in.”

Colton swings his light around the tent and says, “I guess they moved on.”

Oliver states, “Either they are in one of the rooms ahead having a laugh from playing some kind of twisted game of hide and seek, or they can't get out. Maybe the power outage caused a door ahead to prevent them from exiting.”

“Yep, you're probably right, Oliver,” Clyde says, but he knows in his heart that Oliver's wrong about either possibility.

A faint muffled sound comes from behind the wall over Clyde's right shoulder. Colton hears it and straightens up, stopping his search of the tent. Also in response, Oliver spins his light to the wall.

The old man walks over to the source and puts his ear to the wall. He hears another muffled shout. This time it is distinctly a boy's voice.

“It's them, it's got to be them,” Colton asserts.

“Where are they?” Oliver asks. “Is there anything behind that wall, Clyde?”

“Ten feet of weeds, a fence, then the highway.”

Colton theorizes, “Maybe it's just reverberating from somewhere else, like the sound is coming from here but it is really coming from one of the rooms ahead?”

“I don't know much about acoustics, Colton,” Oliver says.

Clyde waves a hand at the others, signaling them to be quiet. However, no more sounds are heard.

Colton begins running his hands against the smooth wall of the room and says, “Maybe there's, like, a secret passage or something.”

“You watch too much television, kid. I am banking on your first theory. Let's move on,” Oliver says as he begins to walk to the next set of doors.

Colton shrugs and joins Sparkman.

Clyde, however, remains at the wall, peering at it.

After a few more seconds, Oliver asks, “You coming, Clyde?” while standing with one foot out of the room.

“Yeah,” Clyde says. He rubs his eyes and takes a step to catch up with Oliver, who has disappeared through the doorway.

The others have no idea about the old ghosts Clyde is fighting in his mind.

Meanwhile, music begins to play in the room, but the three-man search party is already out of earshot.

Chapter 85

The disturbing encounter with the girl has left the group a little more cautious as they enter the next room. Before any of them says a word, Jack makes a complete sweep of the area with his flashlight. No one wants to be surprised by creepy girls or bears this time. Thus far, though, they are relived to find that the only visible object in the room is a large four-foot brick wall that spans about six feet in length with a forest scene painted on it. After spying this, Jack signals to the others, and they creep up to the wall on one side. Amy is wielding her stick; Mason, his axe; Jack, his backpack; and Scotty's picked up a rock.

As they creep to the wall, Jack whispers to Scotty, “You can't throw left-handed.”

“I can, too.”

“Remember Mrs. Turner?”

“Remember the spider?”

Jack shrugs an okay. They get close the edge, and Mason solemnly signals with his hands counting down: three…two…one. All four jump out, ready to tackle any unseen assailant that's behind the wall.

In front of them is one completely freaked-out deer. The fawn takes off hopping around the room looking for solace. Then, all of a sudden, to the group's shock, the deer jumps headfirst into the wall. Jack waits for the impact. However, the deer merely fades into the wall. Suddenly, the picturesque forest scene on the wall has a new fawn in the mural, just standing there placidly.

“Now that beats everything,” Mason declares.

Amy offers, “Bambi?”

“Bambi,” Jack confirms. Walking over to the wall, Amy taps it with her stick. It appears solid.

Even though all four of them are spellbound by the event, they have to admit that the spectacle does not seem all that unusual in the confines of this bizarre place. Eventually, they mentally return to the present situation.

Jack slowly walks around the wall, and once he's assured that nothing is hiding behind it, he breaks the silence and says, “Let me see the map, Mason.”

Mason opens up the map, but holds onto one side of it. Jack picks up the other side and examines the map for a second. Then he says, “There are two sets of doors in here. One dead center, the other to the right.”

Jack wishes Mason would relinquish his death grip on the map, so he tries a diversion by asking, “So what's the story with the little pyromaniac back there?”

Mason turns to hear what Scotty will say and drops his end of the map.

“She's the Little Match Girl,” Scotty replies.

“That was obvious,” Mason adds.

“I didn't make up her name.”

“Yeah, I know, it was hands, wrist, and mandible-er-son guy.”

“Anyways, in her story, she is supposed to sell a bunch of matchboxes, and if she does not, her father gets very angry at her.”

Amy asks, “Angry, how?”

Scotty gives her a glance but says nothing.

“What did she mean by waiting for her grandmother?” Amy asks.

Again, Scotty says nothing and only gives her an uncomfortable look.

“So, she doesn't get a happily-ever-after?” Amy asks with obvious concern.

“Nuh-uh.”

“What kind of fairy tale is that?” Mason jokes.

“The kind that doesn't have a happily-ever-after,” Scotty grimly relates. “Most of the old tales don't actually have happily-ever-afters.”

Jack suddenly holds the map closer to his face, ignoring the last few seconds of conversation, and calls out, “Mason!”

“What?”

“We took the wrong door. We were supposed to turn right.”

“Garbage. Let me see.”

Mason snatches the map and says, “I looked at this thing and….”

“It's pretty obvious, we blew it,” Jack points out over his shoulder.

All four are assembled around the map now. Jack is upset, for the thought of having to re-enter the matchstick girl's room is not high on his bucket list. However, a thought pops into his sometimes-devious head:
This could play in my favor. Maybe the others will listen to me now. How do I play this?
Clearing his voice with too much vigor, Jack proclaims, “That's okay, Mason. So you blew it. We were all distracted by the girl. It's not your fault completely.”

Unaware of the passive-aggressive verbal barrage, Mason folds the map into the work belt.

“We have another problem,” Amy confesses.

The boys look at her expecting the worst.

“We gave her all the coins.”

Chapter 86

A sinking feeling rushes through all four of them. Scotty suggests they run by the girl if they can't sneak past her, and the others agree.

Gearing up for the trip back through the previous room, Jack casually scans the present room again on last time and says, “Nothing has happened since we've been in here. Kind of odd.”

“Come on, Jack, don't jinx us,” Amy teases while shooting a playful elbow into his ribs.

Then, in the far right corner of the room, Jack sees a figure of a man and jumps back in alarm. However, after holding his flashlight before him, he sees that it's another narrator. Jack asks himself,
Has he been there the whole time? No way.

After seeing Jack's temporary distress, the others spot the robotic mannequin themselves.

“Well, is it going to speak?” Mason grunts.

As if waiting for the invitation, the familiar crackling sound signaling the begging of another rhyme vibrates through an unseen spot in the ceiling.

Waiting for the finish of the rhyme, they hold still. After ten seconds, Mason finally comments, “But what? That's it?”

“I think it's broken,” Scotty suggests.

“The rhymes are not coming from the narrator himself, genius. It's piped in from the speakers,” Amy points out.

“Then the speakers are broken,” Scotty clarifies.

Jack is sorely disappointed. He had been delighted that another clue was going to be delivered. Luckily, though, he remembers that the narrator's words had always been written down in the books the mannequins held.

Walking past the brick wall he approaches the figure and sees that the large book is opened in its hand. Looking down on the words that fill the page, he reads, “The help they received may lead them to believe, but….”

Jack thinks,
Now this is downright bizarre.
The “But” is written as the last word at the bottom of the page, and the next page is torn out. In fact, several pages are missing. Little jagged edges of paper give away the fact that someone had actually ripped them out. Now, only one page is left in the book at the end. Looking down at the last page, Jack sees more words.

The others join him around the mannequin. He points out the interrupted words and the torn pages and then points to the last page of the book, which reads:

“Who lived happily ever after?” Amy asks.

“I don't know,” Scotty answers.

Jack determines, “It's talking about us. We live happily ever after! Look, the narrator has been trying to give us clues all night. We've just been ignoring him. We need to go back. He is trying to lead us to some end. Maybe these missing pages—”

“But it said ‘the three of them,'” Amy skeptically interjects.

“Right,” Mason speaks. “It can't be us. There are four of us. It says here that only three lived happily ever after.”

And then, no one speaks, for the gravity hits them at the same time.

Amy manages, “Does that mean one of us ?”

“No,” Jack adamantly replies. “That can't be what it means.”

Mason goes for the jugular and says, “But Jack, if we just do what the narrator says, like you've been itching to do all night, one of us is gonna die.”

“No, we're not,” Jack defends.

Mason retorts, “It's right there in black and white, Jack. Oh, so wait, you wanna listen to the narrator as long as it fits in your little fantasy world, is that it?”

“No,” Jack says. He is frustrated with the reasoning.

“Then we follow the narrator and one of us dies, or we follow the map and live. You pick.”

Mason holds his ground. However, Jack is ready to make his stand. He is confident that he is right and says, “I think we should find the missing pages of this book. That's what we should be doing now. He's trying to get us to go somewhere, but we keep ignoring him.”

It makes complete sense to Jack that if they are supposed to finish the story, then all they need to do is find the pages and follow the advice of the narrator. Still, the idea about someone won't be getting a happily-everafter is confusing to him.

“What about the map and the vault?” Scotty asks, looking to Mason.

“What good has following that map done for us?” Jack counters.

Jack and Mason are at a stalemate. As far as the others, Scotty seems to be wavering a little while holding Lucky to his chest, and Amy is keeping her thoughts to herself. Jack wonders what she could be thinking.

Jack says, “I think the happily ever after depends on us finishing the story.”

“What story, Jack?” Amy responds.

“Can't you guys see? The story of this ride. We are the characters now; this is our—”

“Jack, the only thing I know is that this map is real. And that dude Victor was real. Your little theory is just thattheory,” Mason argues.

Jack suggests, “Well, let's vote then. Who's for finding the pages?”

None of the others reply. Jack says, “Come on, are you serious? Scotty?”

“Sorry, Jack,” Scotty replies. “I'm for getting out of here as quick as possible. I think maybe the map is the only real option we have.”

Amy must now pick a side.

Jack looks at her, who for the first time since their earlier troubles does not look him in the eyes.

She says, “Jack, I'm sorry, it's just—”

“Fine. Just fine. We'll follow the map, then, and keep getting lost. Go ahead, Mason, lead us out of here. Need I remind you all that we are currently standing in a room we could have avoided according to your precious map.”

Jack huffs off. He's aggravated, frustrated, and tired of fighting an uphill battle.

From behind him, he hears Mason say, “Great. Now he's gonna pout.”

“I'm not gonna pout.”

Mason turns to Scotty and says, “Yep. He's pouting.”

Jack responds, “When we first came in the ride, the narrator said we—”

“The narrator said this. The narrator said that. Give it up, Jack. We may have made a wrong turn or two based on the map, but it's something I can touch, and I know if we're getting close or not. At least with this map, we know when we're lost. What about with the narrator? How do you even know where you're supposed to go? Huh?” Mason asks.

“Forget it. Do whatever you want,” Jack replies. He's out of arguments, although he knows he's right even if he can't prove it.

Mason and Scotty exchange a look, and Scotty says, “It's not like we can't keep an eye out for the missing pages, right? Maybe there'll be something useful on them.”

This is some semblance of a peace offering, and it at least acts to calm the situation a little. Nonetheless, they still have to get by the matchstick girl.

“So are we gonna be on the same page with that lunatic girl and her matches?” Mason asks.

Jack feels that Mason is trying to take over, but Jack doesn't see a point in arguing anymore, so he says, “Okay. Same page.”

“Good,” Mason grins.

Amy expresses, “What if the wolf got free of his webs and is in there by now?”

“Well, that puts a damper on things,” Mason says. “But that's a chance we're just going to have to take. Scotty, you got any more of that magic shrinking potion?”

“Nope. You wanna go back to the lab?”

Just then one of the doors behind them swings open. Bracing for danger, they turn toward the door. They see a peculiar looking man in the shape of an egg waltzing into the room and carrying a short stepladder.

“Really?” Mason laughs.

Scotty snickers at the harmless looking man. He playfully calls out, “How are you today?”

The egg shaped man ignores them and simply places the ladder against the brick wall. He begins to climb.

Not wanting to wait any longer, Mason turns to the exit and says, “Let's go, guys.”

Grudgingly, Jack follows with Amy close behind. Scotty is the last one to approach the doors, and before he enters the next room, he turns back
to the odd man and says, “I would not go up there if I were you.” Then he giggles and passes through the doorway.