by C. K. Walker
cold, thin air
A Collection of Disturbing Narratives and Twisted Tales
Volume 2
C.K. Walker
Copyright © 2015 by C.K. Walker
Researched and written by C.K. Walker
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission.
For permission requests, please contact: [email protected]
Printed in United States of America
ISBN-13: 978-1517039912
ISBN-10: 1517039916
Table of Contents
MAYHEM MOUNTAIN
BLUE RIDGE:
DOLLHOUSE
COPPER CANYON
CHRISTMAS MAGIC
IT COMES ON CHRISTMAS
ROOM 733
PALEONTOLOGISTS WERE WE
THE SUICIDE OF BRADLEY ALLIGAN
BORRASCA: Part 1
BORRASCA: Part 2
MAYHEM MOUNTAIN
“In two miles take exit 19 for Valley Park Drive South.” Siri chirped from my sister’s phone.
“Charlotte, turn that off. I know where I’m going.”
“You sure about that? I mean…it has been a couple decades, Mark.”
“Please, like I could ever forget where Adventure Valley is. Come on, we spent every summer of-“
“There it is!” I swerved briefly into the oncoming lane as Charlotte thrust her arm in front of my face to point excitedly out the window. “There’s Adventure Valley! Oh my God, what ride is that? That coaster, it was called ‘Steel’ something, right? No, no, wait, that’s Mayhem Mountain, isn’t it?”
I gently pushed my sister’s arm out of my face and back over to her seat. I couldn’t fault her for her excitement while I was trying so hard to control my own giddiness. It felt like we were kids again, yelling and bouncing in the back seat of my parent’s car as the first shining rails and wooden planks of the park’s roller coasters came into view above the treetops.
“That’s the Steel Viper.” I told her. “Mayhem Mountain’s on the other end of the park. And that wooden coaster over there is the Excalibur.”
“Oh yeah! I remember those! I was always too much of a wus to ride the viper but I rode the shit out of the Excalibur.”
“Well, Charlotte, you’re an adult, now. I think it’s time to take on the Viper.”
“As long as the contractors have tested it and given it the okay, I’m in.”
That was really the question, wasn’t it? We didn’t know which rides had been inspected and cleared and which ones hadn’t. I sent up a silent prayer that Mayhem Mountain was counted among the rides that had. I’d left Brandon several voicemails asking about it since he was the one in charge of everything. But with how fast things had been moving since we’d bought the park, I couldn't fault him for being a busy man.
If you'd told 12 year old me that my crazy, hyper, wild-eyed friend Brandon Decker would end up graduating cum laude from Northwestern business school I would have laughed in your face. Brandon? No way. Tyler, maybe, but never Brandon. In fact, half the reason I think he choose a business designation was because of Adventure Valley. When the park had closed in 1989 Brandon had gathered us all together in his basement and, with a gravitas and solemnness I’ve never seen in him before or since, asked us to make the pact.
At the time the promise had been the most serious vow that five 12 year olds could ever make. High off of an entire summer of Adventure Valley fun, we agreed, with all the ceremony of a meeting of parliament, that we would one day come together and buy Adventure Valley Amusement Park.
Of course, back then we’d planned to just buy it and ride the roller coasters into the ground. We decided which friends from school we would let in and which enemies would be barred from the gates. It had always been our park, and it was only right that we should have it.
It had taken twenty years but we eventually did fulfill our promise. With a hell of a lot of pushing from Brandon (and a sizeable offer of collateral from Tyler) the bank had agreed to give us the multi-million dollar loan to buy, repair, refurbish and reopen the park. The size of the loan that the six of us were responsible for gave me nightmares for several weeks. How would this place ever turn a profit? It had been closed decades ago after operating in the red for several years. The county had experienced a high number of runaways and missing persons in the area in the last years of the 1980s. The entire region was on edge as the cases mounted and people in the area became depressed and suspicious of each other. It had absolutely killed park attendance.
But seeing the first cresting waves of roller coasters rails through the trees made me all but forget about my financial worries. This was Adventure Valley for Christ’s sake. If we opened the gates, people would come.
“There! There, there, there – that’s our exit!” Charlotte squeaked.
I pulled off the interstate and took a left under the bridge. Less than a mile later we came upon acres of the park’s parking lots to our right. We turned in and drove all the way up to the front near the gates where several other cars were parked – a Lexus, a Mini Cooper, an old Chevelle and a Honda Civic – another rental car like ours.
“Looks like we’re the last ones here,” Charlotte said.
She was right. As we pulled up next to the Lexus I noticed a group of people standing next to the ticket booth, waving to us excitedly.
“Oh my God, is that Tyler? Jesus, he’s lost some weight, he’s so skinny now! And Brandon’s losing his hair. Holy shit, is that Koji? Koji got hot!”
“Calm down, Paris Hilton, these guys are my friends. They’re off limits to you, same rules as when we were teenagers. Besides half of them are married.”
“Really…which half?”
I raised an eyebrow at Charlotte and shook my head in amused bewilderment. My little sister never had outgrown her boy craziness.
“Wait, who’s that?” Charlotte asked as we got out of the car.
“What? That’s Scott! You know Scott.”
“Not Scott, Scott looks exactly the same. The girl next to Scott.”
“Oh.” I had put this off so long that I’d actually forgotten to tell my sister at all. “That’s Dani, Scott’s girlfriend.”
“Dani. Dani as in Danielle…Burcher?”
“Well…yeah.”
My sister gave me such a horrified look that you’d think I’d betrayed her to her death. But it was fleeting and quickly replaced by a sly smile.
“Fine by me. I’m sure she’s not the same person she was in high school. We’re all adults now, right? Now come on, let’s go!”
A sigh of relief escaped my chest as I slammed the car door and followed Charlotte over to the entrance. Though I saw most of these guys every year, seeing us all here together, standing at the ticket booths of Adventure Valley, brought me a sort of happiness I hadn’t experienced in many years.
“Mark-fucking-Lantice. I can’t believe it.” Tyler had an edgy, commanding voice that probably made his many employees shudder and scatter. But I knew him like a brother so his bravado just made me laugh.
“Can you believe it?” I asked as I gave him a hug and a slap on the back. “Back at the front gates. $15 a day doesn’t seem so ridiculous now.”
“Pfft, $15 a day, my ass.” Brandon said as he shook my hand. “By my math, it looks like we’ll be charging about $65 a day.”
“I’ll pay it!” Charlotte smiled as she gave Koji a hug.
“Are people really going to pay $65 a day?” Koji asked. “Even Disneyland only charg
es $85 and there you get access to two parks.”
“How could I forget,” Brandon shook his head. “One of our investors works for the mouse. Pity they won’t let you design any artwork for this place.”
“I’m not an artist, Bran, I’m a fucking engineer.”
“Don’t you mean imagineer?” Charlotte winked at him.
Koji sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, I guess I fuckin’ do.”
As Brandon and Charlotte teased Koji I made my way over to the side of the ticket booth where Scott and his girlfriend were conversing. I didn’t know why Scott was being so standoffish but I thought it might have something to do with the investment. Scott, the least well off of us six, worked at his dad’s collision shop and hadn’t had a whole lot of money to invest. I thought maybe he was embarrassed about the money but now, watching him lean against the booth with slowly shifting eyes, I realized it wasn’t that at all - Scott was just stoned. Same old Scott.
“What’s up, Burnout? My brother. I haven’t seen you in like 15 years.”
Scott smiled and pushed off the wall to come give me a quick hug. “Hey, how’s it going, man? Fuck, look at you. What’s your diet, man, rabbit food and lettuce? You’re not gonna get any ladies with that skinny body.”
“Your mom doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Hey, Mark. I’m Dani. Do you remember me? Dani Burcher?” Scott’s girlfriend gave me a shy smile and stuck out her hand so we could engage in a stiff handshake.
“Yeah, I think so. You were in my sister’s class, right? Charlotte Lantice?”
Dani had the decency to look embarrassed. “Yeah, but we weren’t really friends.”
That’s putting it lightly, I thought.
“We were freshmen when you guys were seniors.” She added.
“Yep, I do remember that.”
I decided to just get it over with. There was never a good time to introduce a girl to her high school bully.
I called Charlotte over and the re-introduction of the two girls, while awkward, was over pretty quickly to everyone’s relief. We were all eager to get into the park. It was odd not stopping at the window for tickets and even odder to walk around the rusting turn-styles of the front gates. I delighted in reminding myself that we owned this place now.
Brandon gave us a tour of the park. Now so much of the geography – we all knew that inside and out – but of the hypothetical layout and reorganization of the park as he saw it.
“The Excalibur is going to need the most amount of work, according to Rich, my head contractor. A roller coaster made of wood exposed to the elements for all these years…we’ll keep as much of the original structure as is safe but we might have to rebuild most of it.”
“Do we have the money for that?” Scott asked loudly from where he walked behind us with Dani.
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “We have the money for that.”
“Ah, Mr. Moneybags. That Mini dealership treating you good?” I nudged him hard with my shoulder. Tyler stumbled but kept enough composure to push me back into a passing churro stall.
“Those six BMW dealerships are treating me very well.”
“Well enough to serve as the sizable collateral we needed.” Brandon added.
“So,” Charlotte ran up behind us and threw her arms around Tyler and Koji. “Can we…ride some rides?”
“Are you kidding? Why do you think we’re here?” Tyler laughed.
“I’m just here for Mayhem Mountain.” I said clapping my hands and rubbing them together eagerly.
Brandon threw up his hands. “Alright, fine! I thought you guys would be interested in how your investment is coming along.”
Koji snorted. “The only thing we’re interested in is the projected ROI and, more importantly, which rides have passed safety inspection!”
“Oh,” Brandon stopped walking and tried to look annoyed, and, failing that, he smiled. “A little over half of them are rideable.”
Suddenly everybody was talking at once.
“Is Steel Viper open?”
“Yep, that one’s on.”
“What about Snapdragon?”
“That one is good to go, too.”
“Renegade Falls?”
“The water’s not turned on.”
“High Roller?”
“Yes.”
“Space Spin?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Power Tower?”
“They’re doing the inspection this week.”
There was only one ride I really cared about – mine and Brandon’s favorite.
“What about Mayhem Mountain?”
“Fuck. Yes.” He answered to collective groans from the rest of the group.
Mayhem Mountain had always been our thing. While our friends had been happy to ride High Roller and Snapdragon into exhaustion, Brandon and I always split off toward the end of the day to ride Mayhem Mountain into the twilight hours.
“Ugh,” Charlotte shuddered. “I hate that ride.”
“It’s boring as hell,” Koji agreed. “I helped design something similar for Disneyland Hong Kong. We put it in Fantasyland, for fucks sake.”
“Hey, that ride is awesome. It’s long and it goes upside down,” I argued. “Charlotte is even too scared to ride it!”
“I’m not scared of that ride, it just gives me the creeps. Something about it, just, I don’t know, seems off.”
“Alright, look. We’ll start at this end of the park and work our way towards the back. That way we can ride every ride that’s passed inspection - including Mayhem Mountain.” Brandon said.
“And Snapdragon,” Tyler added and the others nodded excitedly.
“Yes, every ride. And of course we can ride them, you know, as many times as we want.”
“Hell yes, brother.” Koji high-fived Brandon and we headed down the street toward Space Spin.
Our progress through the park was blissfully slow. Everyone wanted to ride every ride multiple times and one person always had to stay in the loading area to operate the ride.
It only took an hour or two to forget that I was a fully grown 35 year old man. Being back here, running through the line-ways with my friends, arguing who got the first row of the first car, it was like being 12 years old again.
Still, my eye was constantly drawn up over the buildings into the distance, to the back of the park where the high, gleaming rails of Mayhem Mountain shined in the unobscured sun. There would be no arguing who got front row on that coaster - it was me and Brandon. It was always me and Brandon.
Charlotte, Tyler and Koji were the most like children, constantly running ahead and arguing over which ride to get on next, yelling back to ask Brandon if this one or that one had been cleared by the contractors.
Brandon and I held back from the group a bit, discussing ideas and possible improvements for the park. Scott and Dani took up the rear of the group, quietly talking and lighting joints.
When we arrived at the Enterprise, a simple ride that consisted on spinning cars on a circular track, I offered to flip the switch while the rest of the group rode to excess. The Enterprise always made me sick when we were kids. Brandon offered to stay on the platform with me to chat while everyone else boarded the cars.
I flipped the switch to start the ride and as the cars spun away from the loading area, the Enterprise’s signage came into view. I sighed. All day I had been trying to ignore the bright graffiti sprayed all over the park but the words painted over the signage for the Enterprise were impossible to ignore.
Where did the missing kids go?
And the rest of the graffiti in the park was much the same. Most said things like: “Where are they?”, “Runaway Row”, “Find Ryan Kinskey”, and “The Missing are now Dead”. Similar sayings could be found in town sprayed across a few dilapidated buildings in the industrial district.
Brandon’s eyes avoided the sign but I could tell he was thinking about it, too.
“Do you think the reason they shut this park down, I mean, do you se
e that being an issue for park attendance?” I asked as casually as I could.
Brandon was quiet for a few moments as he waited for the ride to slow to a stop so he could flip the switch again.
“Nah, I don’t think so. Low attendance issues aren’t actually what shut the park down.”
“They aren’t?” This surprised me.
“Nope. When we were negotiating the sale of the park, I was given access to the park’s financials in the 80s.”
“So they weren’t operating at a loss?”
“Oh they were. But this park has operated in the red since opening day in the 70s. Half of their revenue was being fed back into something called ‘county services’, whatever that is. The bank couldn’t tell me and believe me, I tried to find out.”
“County services…” I mused.
“Yep. Bizarre. And according to the paperwork the park was closed because the owner didn’t want to live here anymore. And he couldn’t be bothered to wait for a decent offer on the property so he just let the bank foreclose on it.”
“So he was a rich guy.” I leaned back against the railing to stretch my back. “And an idiot.”
“Yes – to an extreme in both cases. The owner of the park was Abel Bisette.”
“Bisette? Related to that French billionaire, I’m guessing?”
Brandon nodded. “Michael Bisette. He built this park for his son in the 1971. Abel was never really what we would call ‘business inclined’. In fact I’ve always heard him described as ‘simple’.”
“I can’t believe the son of a billionaire lives in this area.”
“Well, not anymore. He moved on decades ago.”
I shook my head in disbelief. Who would ever have thought that our simple little park was owned by a famous billionaire’s son? Hell, I may have even sat next to him on rides and had no idea!
“You guys want to go again?” Brandon yelled to the others as the ride again came to a stop.
“I’m ready to move on,” Koji yelled back. “Anybody want to ride again?”
“Nope!” a chorus of voices replied.
It was near 5 o’clock when we finally arrived at Mayhem Mountain. As the sun began to set a familiar panic and urgency welled in the pit of my stomach. It took a moment for me to realize that we didn’t have to leave when the park closed this time – because the park didn’t close. We could stay here riding rise until the sun rose tomorrow if we wanted to!