Dark Ride (37 page)

Chapter 142

The echo of the booming voice reverberates through the room and shakes Jack's nerves.

“What is that?” Mason cries.

“That's trouble, big trouble,” growls the wolf. He scurries behind the gingerbread house.

For a moment, everything is silent.

Amy clings to Jack. Scotty holds his place. The narrator, who had seconds ago been on his way out of the room, is now standing fast.

Mason, on the other hand, makes a dash to the door. Upon reaching it, he pulls at the handle wildly.

“It's still locked!” he calls out. Then he tells the narrator, “Open this thing, come on, man! Do something. We've got to get out.”

Showing no emotion at all, the narrator simply replies, “It's too late.”

As soon as the narrator utters those words, the wall to their right collapses in piles of dry wall and stones. Jack ducks down and tries to shield his face and Amy from flying fragments as white dust fills the air.

After the initial implosion, Jack stares into the gaping hole in the wall. He can make out a very large hairy arm that's holding a club the size of Jack's entire body.

“Fe fi fo fum!”

Jack coughs from the powdered air but holds his gaze at the hole as the dust begins to settle. Now, he sees a giant bare foot breaking through the haze. More of the wall implodes as the remainder of the leg flings through the expanse. The Giant is clearly visible now. He has a thick black beard that reaches down to his chest, and a similar black mane of hair hangs down from his head to his shoulders. He's wearing a ragged green shirt and ripped brown pants, both of which cling to his enormous frame. One of his feet, which are roughly the size of canoes, is in a boot, and this comes to rest inches away from Jack.

Then as the Giant slings his club out of the gap, it crashes into the side of the small gingerbread house, which collapses like a stack of cards. The Giant forces the rest of his body through the gap and appears to fill up nearly half of the room. Even as he is hunched over, his head brushes the ceiling.

“I am here for the thief!” the Giant exclaims.

Jack's terror is now on overload.

“Which one of you stole my goose?”

Panic eclipses every other emotion in Jack's mind. He clings even tighter to Amy who is still plastered to his chest. The tension is unbearable. Jack looks desperately to the narrator, who is watching the scene with no expression on his face.

“It's him. He's the one who stole your goose,” Mason cries while pointing at Jack as he walks toward his friend.

Tearing her head away from its nesting spot in Jack's chest, Amy angrily cries, “Mason!”

Scotty, also outraged by the decree, joins his sister, asking, “What are you doing, Mason?”

So much for anonymity
, thinks Jack.
The gig is up.
His only outward reaction is to simply shake his head in disbelief at Mason's betrayal.

“Well, boy,” the Giant says as he casts his enormous yellow eyes down at Jack. “You shall return what you have stolen.”

The stare of the Giant shakes Jack. In fact, he is so utterly terrified that he cannot speak, and only a ramble of guttural noises escapes his lips.

“Jack, come on, just give him the goose,” Mason implores.

The backpack. Where is it?
Jack thinks. He contemplates if the Giant would simply accept the goose and leave them alone.

Jack gently separates himself from Amy's embrace and begins scanning the floor. He tells the Giant, “Uh…hold on just a second. I have it here somewhere.”

The boy tells himself,
Think, Jack, think. Where is it?
He recalls that the Queen sat it down somewhere when she healed his hand, and he walks a few feet behind him to locate the spot. Unfortunately, the area has been covered by fragments of the crumbled wall. Still, Jack knows he must try to recover the backpack, so he begins digging around in the debris. Scotty and Amy soon join him in the search, but Mason only watches as does the wolf, who has moved to not be in the way of the excavation.

Jack quietly says, “It was here. I remember the Queen set it down.”

After a few more seconds of rummaging, Scotty announces, “Got it.” He lifts the pack above his head as if it were a treasure of great value unearthed for the world to see. Then Scotty steps over a large piece of dry wall and hands the pack to his friend.

To Jack, it is indeed priceless. “Thank you, Scotty,” he says.

Jack is relieved, but he's still unsure whether or not the Giant will take the goose and leave.

Immediately, Jack unzips the pack, and as he does so, he tells the Giant, “Uh…sir, I do have the goose. I didn't know it was yours.”

“Give it to me,” the Giant bellows.

Jack reaches into the pack and rifles through its contents. However, Jack is unable to feel the smooth object he's looking for. He opens the pack wider and looks inside. A mortifying fear emerges in him when he realizes the goose is missing.

“It's not here!” he cries.

With a panicked reply, Amy questions, “It's not there?”

Jack spills the contents of the bag on the ground. There are the cups he won earlier along with the small red ball and, also, the package of
Twizzlers he had totally forgotten about, but there is no goose.
Where is it?
Jack wonders. He replays the events of the last few hours and thinks,
How could I have lost the goose? Did I leave it in the key slot? No, I remember I grabbed it out.

“Jack, did you ever lose sight of it?” Scotty asks.

“No,” he declares. But, even as he says this, he remembers the Queen setting it down at his feet as she was about to heal his hand. He had been inside the gingerbread house when he had dropped the backpack on the floor.

“The Queen took it,” Jack states. The blood in his veins goes cold.

The Giant responds, “You lost it? Someone stole it from you!”

This time, Amy attempts to come to the rescue. She says, “That's right; the Queen took it. Maybe you can find her still. She went into that—”

“Enough!” the Giant declares.

Amy cowers backwards.

“So the burglar has been…burgled—ha—how fitting,” says the Giant, whose cold glare is replaced with a grim smile revealing a jagged row of stubby brown teeth. “If the Queen has it, perhaps I will never see it again.”

Jack sees the hand of the Giant tighten around his club.

“Well, I shall have to have compensation for my loss,” the Giant thoughtfully announces.

In spite of the grim reality of the moment, Jack cannot help but be amused by a Giant using the word “compensation.” All of Jack's stereotypes of Giants have been busted.

The narrator now addresses the Giant, “What would you like as repayment?”

“Well, I think I will take the boy, of course.”

“What?” Jack catches himself yelling.

“You heard me. You will be my compensation.”

Amy rushes to Jack and wraps her arms around him. She shakes her head in defiance and says, “No, Jack can't go; he belongs with us. Find the Queen. She is the one—”

“I will hear no more from you, little lady,” the Giant states while lifting his club and lowering the end just inches from Amy's face.

This silences Amy, and she begins to tear up again.

All of a sudden, Jack is pushed from behind, causing him to move forward a couple of steps.

“Take him, and you will let us go, right?” asks Mason, who glares sheepishly at Jack.

“Mason!” Amy yells.

“Mason, you coward!” exclaims Scotty.

Defensively, Mason retorts, “Don't you remember? This is what it said: three of them will have happily-ever-after. I have to get home.”

“Of course all I want is repayment. I am not that unreasonable.” explains the Giant, whose voice has changed and now sounds unnaturally pleasant. “Something was stolen from me. I take the boy in return. He pays his debt to me, and we are square. It is only fair. Look here—”

“But that does not seem fair,” Scotty declares. “It was a statue.”

“Fair? I am the one to determine what is fair. After all, I am not the one who stole something from you.”

Jack's head is spinning. He looks at the narrator for help, but the old man simply continues to twirl the end of his white mustache. Then Jack looks to Mason, who seems eager about betraying him. Jack knows he should feel malice toward him, but when Jack sees Mason looking frail and scared, he knows Mason is just doing what he does best, looking out for himself. Instead of malice, Jack feels pity for him.

“Jack, let's run,” Amy urges in his ear.

Where?
Jack thinks. He considers that even if they could escape right now, the Giant would continue to hunt them, so they'd never be at peace until the debt was paid. All of sudden, a strange feeling of accountability flashes in Jack's mind:
I took the goose. I am the one who got us into this mess. If I leave with the Giant, the others will go free.

Wrestling in his mind with the reality of his guilt, he slowly lifts Amy's chin, looks into her eyes, and whispers, “I'm not running from my mistakes anymore, Amy. The time for running is over. This is all my fault.”

Then, he turns to the Giant and says, “I'll go.”

Chapter 143

Scotty is downright mortified by what's just happened: the Giant's demand, Mason's betrayal, and Jack's acceptance. After everything they had been through during the night, he can't believe that Jack's just going to accept this.

“You're not serious, Jack?” Scotty exclaims.

“No! You can't,” Amy cries. Her face is full of desperation.

The wolf simply shakes his head in disbelief.

Mason, looking at the door, nervously asks, “Okay, so now we can leave?”

Before the Giant can reply, Scotty attempts to reason with the behemoth again. He says, “Sir, we all know the Queen has the goose. What if we were to get it from her and bring it back to you?”

“Well, I am afraid I cannot just let this criminal walk away unpunished. Besides how can I trust a thief and his companions to bring it back?”

“We will bring it back,” Amy asserts.

“No, I'm afraid I cannot trust you,” the Giant says.

Scotty responds, “Yes, I get that, but….”

He tries to remember everything he can about giants about fairytales, considering how this strategy had worked with the troll.

“But what?” asks the Giant while looking quizzically at Scotty.

Stories flood into Scotty's mind. He stammers, “Uh, well, uh, let's say….”

Then he looks down at the floor and sees the contents of Jack's backpack spilled among the debris. He thinks,
That's it! It might work, if the Giant would just bite.

“I don't have time for your delays, boy,” the Giant states.

“What about a game?” Scotty asks.

The Giant looks puzzled and replies, “What do you mean?”

“I mean you and Jack here play a game,” Scotty announces.

“Scotty, what are you doing?” Jack inquires.

“Trust me, okay.”

The Giant seems to be listening, and Scotty continues, “You two play a game. After all, Jack doesn't have the goose. Let fate decide if he should be punished. If Jack wins, he is free; if Jack loses, he goes with you.”

Mason pulls Scotty's arm and mutters into his ear, “You can't trick him like you did the troll. What if you make him mad? He will kill us all.”

Scotty replies confidently, “At least Jack will have a chance. Of course we can't trick him, but it's the best shot we have.”

Mason turns away from Scotty and addresses the Giant, “Whatever happens, win or lose, we can go, right?”

“Of course. I said I would let you go, right?”

There is a moment of pause while the Giant is obviously considering Scotty's query. Then he chuckles and says, “Yes, splendid idea. I like games.”

Scotty beams with hope.

“So, what will it be?” the Giant asks.

Scotty winks at Jack and says, “The shell game.”

Chapter 144

Wallace Braddock watches Clyde sitting with a cup of coffee in his hand and talking to two of the police officers. He looks at his watch and sees that it's 12:27 a.m.

When Houston Carnahan came out of the ride earlier, he was fuming mad. Now, he tells Wallace, “The old man has something to do with this, and the cops are over there treating him like a teddy bear.”

For the last hour, Wallace has put up with this smoldering anger. Houston had also worked up other parents, so much, in fact, that when Clyde had exited the ride, Mr. Chick screamed, “We want our kids back, you liar!”

The crowd around the parents has swelled. Several reporters have joined the throng, probably clued in to the event from their police scanners. About a dozen park employees are there, too, in addition to some curious park attendees who were drawn in by the activity despite the late hour. Also in this mix of people is the Crime Scene Unit from another county, which had arrived, entered the ride, and returned without the children.

Wallace, in spite of the accusations from Mr. Carnahan, is still apprehensive about accusing the old man. At this point, he sees the two officers with Clyde stand up and begin talking to some new arrivals, three grimlooking men in dark blue suits. The five of them move away from Clyde, leaving him sitting alone.

Wallace decides to take this opportunity to speak to Clyde one-on-one and tells his wife, “I'll be back.”

“Where are you going?” Brenna asks, looking at him with eyes red from a night of worry.

“Just stay here,” Wallace responds.

Houston sees Wallace pull back from the crowd of onlookers and starts following him. “I see that look in your eye, Wallace. What are you up to?” Houston calls.

Wallace grimaces, thinking that Houston could ruin everything.

He says, “I'm going to talk to Clyde.”

“Then I'm going with you.”

“That may not be a good idea,” Wallace argues, but he knows he won't be able to stop Houston from coming along.

Houston grins and assures Wallace, “Don't worry, I'll be good.”

The two men realize that sneaking around without being noticed by the police isn't easy. Wallace and Houston loop widely around the snack bar and walk through the carnival games. Then as they near the ice cream shack, they spy Clyde sitting alone and sipping his coffee. While trying to keep just out of sight of the nearby officers, Wallace crouches while Houston stands back flush against the wall peering nervously from left to right and back again.

With the old man less than ten feet away, Wallace whispers, “Clyde, over here.”

The old man turns and blinks. Lines of worry clutter his eyes and forehead. He leans back and moves his head around the back of the stand. He rises to his feet cautiously and erases the distance between him and the two men.

Clyde asks, “What are you doing, Mr. Braddock?” Then when he sees Houston, he looks visibly disturbed.

“Look, we just want to ask you a question or two. I promise Houston won't bite—right, Houston?”

The large man nods, but it is clear he is not happy with Clyde.

Wallace begins, “Look, Clyde, when you left the kids, did you hear any of them say anything about sneaking off?”

Clyde sighs and says, “No. Uh, Wallace, I don't think you should be—”

“I know, Clyde, it's just, I mean, we're worried to death out here and no one will talk to us. Could they have left the ride and the park without you knowing?”

The old man nervously looks over at the cops who are speaking in their huddle about ten yards away.

Then he whispers back, “No. Even if they went out the fire escape exit, the only path loops them back to the front of the ride. And Gwen was out here the whole time.” He pauses, sighs again, and continues, “Look, Wallace, I promise I don't know what happened. I had nothing to do with this.”

Wallace feels a hand squeeze his shoulder hard and knows it's Houston, but he ignores him and says, “I believe you, Clyde.” He needs Clyde to feel unthreatened, even though Wallace still has his doubts. He is hoping for some kind of a breakthrough.

Wallace goes on to ask, “Did you see anything unusual in the ride?”

The old man hesitates and then sets down his coffee mug on the concrete ground below. It is obvious that something is troubling him.

He replies, “Well, uh, not really.”

Houston can't keep quiet. “What are you not telling us?” he exclaims.

Wallace bristles and shushes the large man. He quickly looks around the corner at the huddle of officers and is relieved to see that none of them seem to be aware of this conversation. Then he gives another critical look at Houston, who's hovering right over his shoulder.

Suddenly, footsteps click on the pavement behind them.

“What are you gentlemen doing back here?” asks Officer Quinn.

Wallace responds, “Look, we just want some answers. You're not telling us—”

“What's going on here!?” Officer Dockins yells from the huddle of police.

Then he begins walking toward the group around Clyde and says, “Carnahan, Braddock—what on God's green earth are you doing? You were told to stay—”

“I know what we were told,” Wallace asserts. “But our kids—”

Dockins waves his hand in front of Wallace's face, signaling him to be quiet. The officer says, “You two are obstructing a police investigation. I'm not sure what's gotten into you, but this is a serious offense. Quinn, take these two back to the—”

“Wait, Jimmy,” Clyde interjects. “Let them stay for a second.”

Dockins is surprised, as are Wallace and Houston.

“There is something I haven't told you,” the old man says.

“Well, spit it out!” exclaims Houston.

“When I was in there earlier…when we first started searching for them…well, I saw this door.”

For the next five minutes, Clyde explains in detail the strange events he had kept hidden. He recounts in detail the music, the glowing sign, and the door.

Then he mentions, “In fact, the same thing happened back when the other kid, Finch, disappeared years ago.”

“Why are you just now telling us this, Clyde?” Dockins asks.

“I told the cops about the door back when Finch disappeared. They checked it out and found nothing. They said I was crazy and made me go see a doctor for months until I had to make a formal statement that I had concocted the whole thing about the door. But I know what I saw, and no shrink's gonna tell me different.”

One of the Crime Scene guys who had joined the party comments, “It does sound crazy.”

Quinn snickers until she sees the disapproving face of her superior. Then she coughs and regains composure.

“Clyde, you're telling me this crazy music starts and this mysterious door just appears out of nowhere? That's a hard story to swallow,” admits Dockins.

Wallace can see the doubt in the policeman's eyes.

But for himself, he is looking for any sign of hope, so he says, “But what if he's telling the truth? Let Clyde show us where the door is. As far as I can tell, it's your only lead.”

Dockins looks at the old man and studies him.

Houston adds, “It's worth a shot, right, Officer?”