The Amusement Park

The Spelunker’s Cave had been one of my favorite rides since I was a kid. I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was almost fourteen. But, I still loved it. My friends did too.

Toni, Andra, Caroline, and I piled into the boat, ready for the darkness. Five other boats were lined in front of us. Ours was the sixth and final boat. A long, long line of amusement park thrill seekers awaited their turns.

We jerked forward; whooping and hollering. Toni clapped and whistled. Andra waved her hands through the cool, pumped-in air, and Caroline crooned in deep, ominous tones.

“Don’t scare me, y’all,” I laughed.

“Oh, poor Lilah,” Toni teased, “boogedy, boogedy.” She pulled my hair from the back seat as Caroline and I mocked fright from the front seat.

“Hey, where did that first boat go?” Andra asked.

“Probably around the corner up there, doofus.” I turned my head toward the animatronic characters parading around the cave’s rocks and crevices.

Toni pointed. “Whoever creates those sure makes them look real.”

“How would you know?” Caroline bellowed. “How many spelunkers have you met?” Her sing-song voice echoed off the painted, obviously-Styrofoam walls.

“Hey, now the second boat is gone,” Andra observed.

“Corner, doofus,” the rest of us said.

“Jinx. You owe me a Coke.” All but Andra laughed.

The music sounded tinkly and cheap. Elongated somehow. A shiver ran up my spine.

“Did it just get really cold in here?” Caroline rubbed her hands together. ” I don’t remember it ever being this cold in here before.”

Andra piped up once again. “The third boat has vanished now. There’s only two in front of us.”

She was right. All the boats had been just about five feet apart. Where were the others? Where had they gone so quickly? This was supposed to be a slow-moving ride. Our collective laughter turned from joyousness to nervousness.

A young family, Mom, Dad, son, and daughter turned to face us. “ls there something wrong with this ride? Is this what’s supposed to happen?” The mother’s eyes were wide, shifting from one side to the other. “We’ve never been on this before.”

“Flora, sit down,'” the father scolded. “You’re going to dump us all into the water if you don’t sit down.”

The little girl plopped her thumb into her mouth and sat. The boy, a bit younger and sitting up front screamed a scream of bloody murder; haunting. “lt’s gone. It’s gone, too. Daddy!”

Caroline and I pulled our safety bars upward and scrambled into the back seat of the boat. Crawling over Andra and Toni, we didn’t care about anyone’s screams, laughs, or following the rules.

“No,” Andra wailed. “No, it can’t be.” She started pulling her own hair out by the roots. “Th-that family just disappeared.”

The boat and all four of its occupants had vanished. Nothing was left but greenish-colored, rippling waters.

“I’m out of here.” My teeth chattered together, and my chin quivered. I stood and dangled one foot over the boat’s edge. The water was, maybe, six inches deep.

“We have to stay together. We have to stay together.” Andra chanted over and over and over.

We closed our eyes and prayed. A thud, high-pitched squeal, and whoosh and our group was back where we had started. Safety was our first priority. I had never moved so quickly in my life.

“Where’s the attendant?” Andra whispered.

“Where’s all the damn people that were here before, waiting in line?” My head ached and I felt like I was going to throw up.

My friends and I clasped hands and walked in petrified silence. The horses on the Merry-Go-Round were galloping, up-and-down, up-and-down. But they held no riders. The Ferris wheel churned and churned. But there were no people in the locked cages. No one was manning the cotton candy stand, the lemonade counter or the chicken shack.

We ran and ran and ran. Careful, deliberate steps. We held fast to each other all the way to the parking lot. As we stopped to catch our breath, we looked back.

A thin, pale man with a shock of white hair and wearing a green jumpsuit was pushing a broom across the pock-marked concrete.

“Excuse me, sir. Do you work here?” I asked.

“Used to,” he grinned, showing oversized, yellow teeth. “Park’s been shut down ’round, oh, ten years. You hear about that girl that got murdered here? Actually, there been lots of murders here, dontcha know?” He laughed, a heavy, low, and maniacal sound.

We ran and ran and ran.