Dark Ride (28 page)

Chapter 102

The wolf enters the sewer from a secret passageway. He looks around for any sign of the teenagers and sees the body of the piper pressed up against the side of the drain, almost entirely covered by rats.

He infers that the kids had been here and that he is too late. They seem more resourceful than he had considered, and a disturbing thought enters his mind:
What if they are too clever for even me? Nonsense, remember who you are. You are the wolf; they are your prey. Perhaps you will have a
four-course meal?
After reassuring himself, the wolf straightens and sniffs the air. He surmises that the kids had not been gone long and wonders if he should take the ladder up behind them. However, he decides that the resourceful group will be able to keep moving, so he determines to travel further into the tunnels to the next ladder where he can take another passage and ambush them on the other side.

Chapter 103

So far, none of the goats have made a violent gesture towards the teen, but Mason's worried and asks, “What if they charge at Amy?”

“Um, charge Amy?” Jack responds.

“She's wearing red. Oh wait—that's bulls. My bad,” Mason recalls.

“Sure you're okay?” Jack asks.

“I can still count by twos: three, six, nine, twelve…. Kidding.”

Jack shakes his head. After their encounter with the piper, he is not sure whether or not the foursome could endure yet another close call. Although the break from danger had given the group time to heal mentally and physically, none of them had come through the journey unscathed. He had been bitten and apparently had nearly died; Mason was kicked in the jaw and nearly drowned; Scotty fell onto his shoulder through the vent and then was almost shot; and in addition to her hoodie catching on fire, Amy is being hunted by a wolf who wants to eat her. All in all, it has been a rough go for them.

“Great last trip to Enchanted Forrest, huh?” Jack muses cynically.

Still, Jack thinks the green field of this room is stunning. It's a plush verdant carpet of turf that supplies the goats with their sustenance.

None of the group appears to be in any great rush to start navigating this huge room, the largest one thus far. There is an unspoken pause of activity as if someone had called a timeout in this new room. But Jack soon starts getting antsy when he considers that another nefarious character could sneak up behind them. He determines that it's time to break the timeout.

He clears his throat and announces, “So, let's have a look around, right?”

“I'm not going anywhere near those goats,” Mason answers.

“They're a third your size,” Amy counters. “And you aren't wearing red.”

Mason shakes his head and says, “But who knows in this place? They could shoot lasers out of their eyes.”

Ignoring the last comment and walking over to the center of the room, Amy says, “I think it's safe to say I know why this room is called the chasm.”

She ushers the other boys toward her, and soon Jack and Mason realize why, too, after arriving at Amy's side. From this vantage point, they can see a large deep canyon that runs the entire length of the room, splitting it into two equal parts. The two sides of the cliffs are roughly 25 feet apart.

“Over here,” calls Scotty, who had wandered off a bit from the others. He's standing by a wooden bridge that spans the width of the gorge. “It's a bit rickety, but I think it will hold,” Scotty estimates.

Jack figures that the verbal berating he had given himself has possibly motivated Scotty to take some more initiative.

“Lookout Mountain,” Jack utters.

He and his family made annual trips to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and there, just before you made it to the zenith of the mountain, you had to cross a bridge similar to this one, a swinging rope bridge. Jack, who has never been a fan of heights, hated every step. And, to make things worse, Blair has no such fear. She liked to hop up and down on the bridge and cause Jack to cower down on his hands and knees and grip the nearest available adult. This caused a bit of embarrassment when he was ten and accidentally grabbed hold of a particularly large, tobacco-chewing tourist from Austin, Texas, instead of one of his parents..

This bridge stretched over this present chasm is nowhere near as long as the Lookout Mountain one, but it is just as imposing to Jack, whose nerves are already worn thin.

“What's up, Jack?” Amy asks, noticing the sweat beading on his forehead.

“Oh, nothing,” he lies. “Mason, you going first?” Jack asks, assuming Mason would jump at the chance to be the alpha male again.

“Nope, I think Scotty should go,” Mason answers.

Jack is perplexed and thinks,
Something is just not right with him. Is he trying to make Scotty man-up? No, that's not like Mason. Something must be wrong.

“Okay, I'll go,” Scotty says and gulps.

He slowly extends a foot over the first planks of the wooden bridge and presses down on it. A relieved expression crosses his face, and he declares, “It's pretty solid.”

After being assured that the bridge will hold, Mason follows Scotty onto it.

“Ladies first,” Jack says and extends his arm out over the bridge while bowing to Amy.

“Why, thank you, kind sir, but I insist, you first,” Amy tells him and gives a curtsy in return.

Jack considers how it seems odd to be having fun and flirting in this place. But, he figures, they're teenagers, and that's what they do.

Although it is not a far walk from one side of the chasm to the other, for Mason, Jack, and Amy, it seems like crossing the bridge is taking forever. This is because Scotty, ever cautious, is taking deliberate steps. Jack imagines that he could count “ten Mississippi” in the time it takes Scotty to move one step.

Jack extends his hand back to Amy, and she reaches out and clasps it. The boy looks back and she returns his gaze with a wry smile. It's exactly what the doctor ordered for Jack. He now realizes that all his previous worrying about whether or not Amy was agreeing with him or someone else didn't matter; It's obvious they like each other, and a disagreement here or there wasn't going to change that. His excitement about being in the throes of his first true crush makes Jack forget about fearing the chasm. In fact, the deep plunge to the unseen bottom of the cliff seems to hold no danger to Jack now. He is clearly under the protection of Cupid.

The travelers are halfway across the chasm, when Jack suddenly remembers the words of the P.S. in Douglas Finch's notebook: “P.S. Do not cross the bridge.”

Unfortunately, it is too late, for from below they hear a menacing growl, “Arrrggghhh.”

“Great. Just great. What now?” Mason cries.

Then, as if it had been shot upwards from a cannon, a huge horrible olive green creature flies from below the bridge to up above the bridge before landing on it with a thud, causing the entire structure to bounce. Looking up, Jack sees a massive troll blocking their path.

Chapter 104

Jack admonishes himself, thinking,
I should have known from the first moment I saw the goats. It is so obvious, now. What was I thinking? And Scotty—Scotty of all people—should have known this bridge would be straight out of the “Three Billy Goats Gruff.”

This troll is at least six-foot-five and is standing directly in front of Scotty. Jack thinks that it may be the most grotesque sight he has ever born witness to. It has green leathery skin, a bulbous nose with multiple black moles, and a mangy mess of a red beard that drapes down its bare chest.

The beast roars, “Who dares cross my bridge?”

Its teeth show no signs of dental care, and its breath, Jack thinks, is bad enough to kill small land-dwelling mammals.

Jack is suddenly aware that someone has grabbed him around the knees. He looks down and sees that it's Mason.
Wait a minute…Mason?
he questions. Jack would have predicted that Mason would have been the one to act first in this situation by speaking or doing something else. However, he's about as far from fulfilling that role as possible at the moment. The kick to his jaw and the subsequent spell of blackness had apparently triggered something within him. Jack wonders if his trauma surfaced some deep fear that Mason had not considered before or if it's a matter of Mason being confronted with the reality that he could in fact die.

“Answer me! Who dares cross my bridge!?”

Scotty says, “Uh…We do?”

“'We do?' Who are ‘we'?” the troll rumbles.

“Uh, sir, we just want to pass, that's all. We're trying to go home,” Scotty utters.

Mason releases his grip on Jack and stands up.

Jack stammers, “Uh, sir—Mr. Troll—uh, we would love to stay and chat, but we are very late for an important meeting.”

“A meeting, you say?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, I have meeting as well. I am tired of eating goat. I think you might have a meeting with my stomach—har har har! Of course, the Queen has told me to let you pass.”

Jack had forgotten about the Queen and is comforted in being reminded that they do have allies.

“But she's not my boss,” says the troll. “She thinks she can tell me what to do. Sends her henchman to give me orders—bah! I will do as I please. I am hungry. Goat, goat, goat. That's all I eat. She will not deprive me of a little human flesh here and there.”

Jack looks at the large club extending from the monster's hand to the bridge floor and calls out, “Mr. Troll, sir, you don't want to eat us. We are scrawny compared to the next group of kids.”

“Next group?”

“Yeah, there is another group of travelers.”

“There are more of you coming?”

“About eight, that's twice as many as us. And from what I saw, they are much larger.”

The troll looks at the rather robust size of Scotty and drools. A line of spit drops from his mouth to the bridge.

“You do not lie?”

“Uh, no, I mean, yes, I am not lying. Big kids coming this way…. Go check for yourself,” Jack lies.

He has not pegged the troll as a bright one and watches while it thinks. Then he sees the massive green monster grab Scotty and lift him up and place him on his other side.

Jack thinks,
He's bought the story. How ironic: just like the real tale.

In order to avoid being touched by the troll, Mason scoots to one side of the bridge. There is little room for both the troll and him. Then the troll passes from Mason to Jack, who almost hurls at the wafting scent. The stench reminds him of a combination of road kill, bologna, and his Aunt Helen's sock drawer.

The troll passes Amy over and they are almost completely off the bridge, when the bridge starts bouncing up and down violently. The troll turns around and sees Scotty bolting to the other side of the bridge. It growls and charges back toward them.

Chapter 105

They all see the troll barreling toward them, and they flee to the other side of the bridge. Jack looks to the front of the structure and sees that the ropes of the bridge are tied to a large wooden stake at the end. He thinks that if they could just untie the rope before the troll gets to the other side, then it would fall into the ravine.

When Jack sees that Scotty and Mason are clear of the bridge, he yells, “Untie the rope!”

However, Scotty ignores the call and just keeps running toward the door. Mason also ignores Jack's plea and follows Scotty.

Jack realizes he will have to untie the rope. The boy hastily reaches to the thick rope knotted around the post. He strains to undo it, but it's too tight. Jack looks back and sees that the troll has almost caught up to them. He wonders how such a large beast could move so quickly.

The troll reaches out, grabs Amy, and turns her around. Then, as if she were a child's play doll, he lifts her with one of his trunk-like arms and holds her over the ravine.

Amy screams in terror, and this stops Scotty in his tracks. He turns around, and after seeing his sister in a helpless condition, he fumbles in his pants for the scissors while racing to stand beside Jack on the bridge.

Scotty yanks out the shears and, holding them like a knife, demands, “Put her down!”

The troll recognizes the false bravado of the pudgy boy with his shaking scissors and simply laughs.

Then he grunts, “You want me to drop her?”

Chapter 106

In an elegant room somewhere within the ride, the Queen, who's now wearing a regal dress, is sitting upon a throne made entirely of candy. The rest of the room is also splendored in tasty treats, such as a fountain of chocolate and tall arches of gumdrops. The squirrel is there, too, perched upon the arm of the chair.

“Well done!” says the lady. “It seems to me you have done nothing to interfere with the conditions of the prophecy. I must admit, I was fearful they would falter once they came into contact of some of our less hospitable residents.”

Chirps and squeaks emit from the squirrel.

“Yes, Victor should have been there.”

Then, as if summoned by her voice, the man enters.

“Victor, where have you been?”

“Uh, I have been following the travelers just as you asked.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, milady. They are doing a splendid job. Everything is going according to plan.”

“Victor, then why is it that our friend here tells me that the travelers have encountered some trouble along their way.”

The man bows and replies, “Yes, milady, I am truly sorry. I have been following them, but it has been a might bit tricky. Some of your less gracious subjects have not given me pass.”

“Of course. But Victor, I asked you to aid them when you saw fit. I understand that they had some trouble in The Grove as well?”

“I was there watching from the shadows. It was a bit touch-and–go, as they say, but these four, these teens, they are resilient. I am doing just as you asked. I am only going so far as to keep them safe.”

“And the sewer?”

“Milady, you know I can't deal with that match girl. They made it through all right. In fact, I think they did-in the piper.

“There are worse things here than the piper. If they fail, we will all die here. You must help them no matter your personal feelings, are we clear?”

“Yes, milady.”

“And the bridge keeper understands my orders?”

“Given to him by myself, milady. He understands and will allow them passage.”

“He had better. I am a bit unsettled. All of us, the entire community, depend on their success. Perhaps you should take a more active role? I fear for their survival, in spite of the prophecy.”

“Of course, my Queen. I will hasten to them at once.”

“Good. You are lucky that my pet here,” she says while stroking the fur of the squirrel, “was less apprehensive about helping.”

“I apologize. I will go. I did give them the coins, and they do have the map.”

“Yes, I know. Thank you, Victor. What of the wolf?”

“He is pursuing them just as we planned. If he gets too close, I will take action.”

“Excellent. All is well, although I cannot say it has been smooth.”

“Yes, again I am sorry, my Queen.”

“Go now, and push them gently.”

With another low bow, the man rushes to a spot in the wall where two large, red-striped, candy canes hang suspended by a rope of taffy. He quickly grabs and lowers the one on the right, and an exit appears from nowhere in the wall, which the man scampers through.

The Queen then gently whispers to the squirrel, “He means well, my pet. Thank you for your brave action. Continue monitoring the situation.”

The squirrel runs off after Victor, and the Queen eases back into her throne, closes her eyes, and dreams of freedom.