Highway to Hell

by Val Crowe

  I came to a stop right in front of a pendulum ride. It was half rusted out, and the way that the rust was overtaking the structure, breaking it down, it suddenly seemed as though it was… diseased.

  I coughed, taking a step back, feeling uneasiness creep up my arms and the back of my spine. Everything here was diseased, wasn’t it? This was a good place that had been infected by something rotten. Like rot, it had a sickly sweet smell and a nasty finish.

  The whole park put me in the mind of a piece of hard candy that had fallen in the dirt. The muck stuck to it, covering all the sweetness beneath.

  I started to back up, to try to get out of there, but then I saw the others coming into the park, and they all had that same eager look on their faces that I’d had.

  Lily waved at me. “It’s nifty, huh?”

  I nodded, putting my hands in my pockets. “Yeah. Nifty.”

  She broke away from the others to catch up to me. She looked around appraisingly. “I mean, it’s obviously all messed up now, but can you imagine what it was like back when it was open?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I said.

  She turned in a circle. “I used to love amusement parks when I was a kid. We lived near Busch Gardens, and one summer I bargained away all my Christmas presents that winter for a season pass in the summer. I went every weekend. It was amazing.”

  I hadn’t gone to amusement parks too often as a kid. After all, my mother hadn’t had a lot of money. Scamming people about ghosts doesn’t exactly make a person wealthy. It had been a special treat to be able to go to a place like this. I’d been maybe twice as a kid, and then not to one again until senior year, when it was a big class trip. “Yeah, amusement parks are cool. You like the rides?”

  “I do.” She nodded. “Yeah, it’s fun to do scary things when you know you’re actually safe, you know?”

  “Right,” I said.

  “And also, the whole carnival atmosphere. The games and the lights and the food. It’s just fun.” She tapped her chin. “But this place… none of that is here anymore. Even though you can almost sense it underneath, like it’s trying to break free again, to be whatever it used to be. Still, it’s past its expiration date. I don’t know why it’s still so cool.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Everyone else caught up.

  Oscar was beaming. “I went all over the other night. I feel like there might be some activity in the center of the park. There’s a mirror maze there, and I got a bit of a vibe from it.”

  A vibe, huh? I wanted to roll my eyes, but I managed to keep myself in check.

  “What about over there?” said Lily, pointing. “That roller coaster? Can we check that out?” She turned to look at Patrick. “I feel like Molly might have gone to see that.”

  “Maybe,” said Patrick, and now he took the lead, heading toward the roller coaster, which twisted through the air like a metal serpent.

  Lily went after him and the rest of us trailed behind. After a minute, I caught up with Lily. I didn’t want to pry, but I had to admit that I was curious. “So, your sister came to this park because she was checking it out? Like how people go and explore abandoned asylums?”

  “Could be,” said Lily, glancing at me. “Honestly, we don’t know. We think she came here, or the police thought so, anyway. Right after Molly went missing, they looked into her search history on her computer, and she had been looking this place up, and she’d pulled up directions to drive here. They found her car, along with her cell phone, about a half a mile down the road from here. Also, when we were working with Oscar, he said that this place had the most vibrations or something.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at him. “He said that?” Because the guy was probably simply angling to try to get the best podcast he could. And a haunted amusement park was a pretty cool setting. Oscar didn’t care about actually finding her sister or figuring out what happened to her. Of course, with the other evidence, it did seem likely that Molly had come here.

  “It’s weird, though,” Lily continued. “Because she came alone, and she didn’t tell anyone she was coming. If she was just coming for a fun exploration, then why not bring someone along? Why the secrecy?”

  “So, you think there was some other reason she came?”

  “Had to be,” said Lily. “But I have no idea what it could have been. That’s what we’re hoping to find out.” She shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m hoping to find out. Patrick, he’s just focused on the money. The jewels that are missing—my mother’s—they’re worth a good deal.”

  We had arrived at the roller coaster. It loomed over head, its twisting tracks rusting, covered in moss and vines.

  Patrick was surveying the thing, a look of wariness on his face. “This place is creepy, all right. I’m sure Oscar will have a field day.”

  “It’s full of supernatural energy,” spoke up Oscar, who was right behind us. Man, I hoped he hadn’t been listening to what Lily and I had been saying. Of course, I hadn’t called him a hack out loud or anything. Maybe it was fine.

  “Do you think so, Mrs. Garrison?” said Lily, looking at my mom.

  “Call me Cora,” said my mother.

  “Do you sense anything about my sister?” said Patrick.

  My mother turned to look at me.

  I shook my head. I had a general feeling of unease here, but I hadn’t seen anything yet. Didn’t mean that there was nothing here. I was pretty sure there was, after all. It had called to me. Maybe the ghosts were being coy.

  “Let’s keep going,” said my mother. “Show us that maze you’ve been talking about Oscar.” She smiled at him. Oh, ugh. Was my mother flirting with Oscar? Gross. Another reason I didn’t like the guy.

  I shouldn’t begrudge my mother finding someone, I suppose. It wasn’t as though I had an attachment to her being with my father or anything. I had never really known the guy. He hadn’t been around while I was growing up. So, overall, it should be no big deal for my mother to have a thing with a guy. And yeah, I’d be fine with it if she found someone that wasn’t a big douche, like Oscar seemed to be.

  But Oscar had taken the lead now, and we were taking off through the park toward this mirror maze.

  We walked past bumper cars and some ride called the Caterpillar. Everything was damaged and faded.

  Eventually, we reached the mirror maze.

  It was about three stories high, and it stood directly in the center of the park. It had a sign in front of it, rust going down it in long lines, but still readable. Slappy Happy’s Mirror Maze.

  Slappy Happy was apparently a clown. One of those white-faced, red-nosed guys with a big smile painted on his face. He wore a polka dot costume with baggy sleeves and legs, at least that’s how he was depicted on the sign. He was dancing and presenting the words.

  The entrance to the maze was Slappy’s mouth. His face was over top of that—wide eyes and a big ball nose, and then a red mouth stretched impossibly high and wide to allow people to walk inside over his long tongue.

  Inside, I could see sets of mirrors, some broken.

  The place didn’t look inviting. It looked demented.

  The second I saw it, I shied away from it. Something about that place was wrong. If there was a source of the rot here, that was the source. As much as I didn’t like Oscar, he was right. This place vibrated. It buzzed, humming as if it knew a secret that it wasn’t ready to share. Not unless I came inside.

  I felt cold.

  The others went closer to the maze, talking about it. I hung back.

  “Probably dangerous inside,” said my mother, peering into Slappy’s mouth. “Looks like there’s a lot of broken glass.”

  I had a sudden thought that Slappy’s mouth might close on her, swallowing her into that awful red mouth.

  I almost called out to her, but I choked it down, feeling ridiculous.

  “Doesn’t seem structurally sound, no,” said Oscar. “I didn’t go in last night, but if we think it will be important, the
n obviously, we’ll need to see what happens if we enter.”

  I licked my lips. I wasn’t sure that anyone should go inside that place.

  “Do you sense anything that has to do with Molly?” said Lily.

  “I think this has got to be tied to Molly’s disappearance,” said Oscar. “If something in this park harmed her, it came from here.” He patted Slappy’s tongue.

  I felt ill.

  “Something like… something paranormal,” said Patrick. “Is that what we think happened?” He furrowed his brow.

  “We don’t know what happened,” said Lily. “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  I was glad when we left that place behind.

  We walked around the rest of park in a wide arc, following the trails that weren’t overgrown to look at various other defunct rides and attractions. There was an amphitheater that was cut into a hill, rows of seating looking down on a stage that had trees growing up out of the rotted wood. There was a free-fall tower and a set of towering spiral slides. There was a whole section of kiddie rides, now lost in a tangle of vines and moss.

  Eventually, we came around to a ride called The Tunnel of Love. It looked as though it had been a water ride, where couples had boarded small, gondola-like, floating cars that went into a tunnel.

  No one else seemed to pay it much mind, but I found myself ambling over to it when I saw it. It seemed to pull at me in a way that I couldn’t quite explain. I didn’t feel frightened by it, but only a bit bemused. I stopped at the place where the line for the ride would have queued up.

  Faintly, in the distance, I heard music playing. The Cure, I thought. “Lovesong.”

  But then, the whisper of a small child, echoing from the darkness of the tunnel.

  “Stop it!” A sob.

  I was chilled again. Shaking it off, I hurried to catch up to the others.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Once we had explored the park thoroughly, we were all tired and hungry, but luckily, my mother had purchased the entire grocery store. She had a grill that she fired up outside her motorhome, and she started making a veritable feast. Sausages and peppers and grilled potatoes. She had tables in the motorhome too, and I helped set that up.

  Soon, we were all breaking out the alcohol we’d brought. Everyone was sharing wine and beer and gin and tonics—my mother’s contribution. We sat under the awning in the fading light, under the shadow of the amusement park, and everything was good.

  I remember looking out as the shadows stole over the park, and thinking it was the most horrible place that I had ever seen. Why had I been so drawn to it earlier? How could anyone be drawn to something like that? I couldn’t stand the place. It slithered and crawled. It felt like something live that prodded at the edge of my consciousness. I hated it.

  I couldn’t put my finger on what made it so repulsive to me now, but it was partly because of its decay and partly because of its life. Things were growing all over it, alive, taking it back, and those growing things, those pervasive plants and bacterias and fungi, they were awful.

  Maybe I wouldn’t stay.

  Nothing was keeping me here. I had come to see my mother, but she either didn’t know anything or wouldn’t talk, and that meant that I could leave and be no worse off than I had been. I didn’t know where I would go if I left. I had been considering taking the Airstream out west. Maybe driving Route 66 or something. It was kind of a shlocky, touristy thing to do, but I never got to do stuff like that.

  Of course, I’d been considering doing that before I’d found out about Negus.

  Back then, I’d done the best that I could to ignore the ghosts. Now, I was driven to understand it all more. And not only that, I was in danger. Negus was out there. He still wanted me. Furthermore, the other ghosts seemed to want me too.

  It seemed patently stupid to ignore it all now. It was amazing I’d made it as long as I had without anything happening to me.

  No, I needed answers.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I settled into my chair and nursed my beer.

  Lily pulled up a chair next to me. “So, if you’re not a Trekkie, what are you into?”

  “Me?” I touched my chest, laughing a little. “You mean, do I have an obsession with some form of entertainment? Movies, TV shows, comic books, novels, or video games?”

  She nodded, raising her eyebrows.

  “When I was a kid, I was into superheroes a little, but… uh, I don’t know. I go see the movies in the theater now, I guess. I wouldn’t call myself obsessed, though.”

  “You have to have a hobby,” she said.

  “Well, I guess the Airstream is kind of a hobby.” I gestured to my camper trailer. “Thing’s old as dirt, right? It’s always in need of tinkering.”

  She looked at the camper appraisingly. “Wow. You work on it yourself?”

  “When I found it, it had been sitting out in the woods for probably thirty years, maybe more,” I said. “It had all the original interior, but most of it was beyond repair. I ripped out almost everything and put in new stuff. The bathtub stayed. It was in good condition. Needed a good bleach, but that was all.”

  “Those things have tubs?”

  “Oh, yeah, it’s standard in the Ambassador,” I said. “It’s not huge. You can’t stretch out in it or anything. I mean, someone like me, it’s no good as a tub, but it’s nice to have a place to wash things out if you need it. You’ll have to come in and see.”

  “Okay.” She smiled at me.

  I smiled back. I liked Lily. It was too bad my mother was scamming her.

  Speaking of the devil, my mother raised her voice. “Come and get it,” she bellowed. She had dished all the food onto platters on the table, and we all came to sit down.

  For several minutes, the only talk revolved around getting the food. We dipped sausages onto buns and spooned grilled peppers over them, smothering them in mayonnaise out of one of those squeeze bottles that my mom had insisted we pick that up at the store that morning. We all dug into the potatoes, which my mother had cooked in a grill basket with olive oil and rosemary. They were delicious.

  Everything was delicious. It was all perfect, a better meal than I’d had in a long time.

  When had my mother become such a good cook? I never remembered her cooking much of anything. When I was a kid, she mostly threw things in the microwave or made stuff that came from a box, like Hamburger Helper.

  “Well, I gotta say, this is about damned near perfect,” Patrick said. “Cora, you’ve outdone yourself.”

  My mother laughed. “You’ll be billed for groceries.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “I didn’t know I was getting a gourmet cook when I hired you,” said Patrick, shoveling potatoes into his mouth.

  “Oh, I’m no gourmet.” My mother waved that away.

  “You are quite talented,” said Oscar, meeting her gaze.

  My mother looked deep into his eyes.

  And for a moment, even that didn’t bother me. What was the big deal, after all? Everyone was happy. It was good to be happy.

  It was comfortable here, in the shadow of the amusement park, in our little encampment, where there was good food and strong drink and light and laughter. Had I really considered leaving?

  “I didn’t think I would cook,” my mother was saying. “The idea came to me after we’d parked here and I looked in on the park. I thought to myself that we’d need good food to fortify us. And please, anyone who wants to try one of the gluten free buns, please do.”

  I had to admit, the gluten free buns looked tempting. They weren’t store bought, but made by my mother out of flax meal and rice flour or something, she’d said. I wasn’t the kind of person to eat that kind of stuff, but I was considering trying one.

  “You have definitely fortified us,” said Lily, raising her glass of white wine, which was in a clear plastic cup. “To Cora.”

  Laughing, we all clinked our drinks together, echoing Lily’s sentiment, only I said,
“To Mom.”

  “To Point Oakes Park,” said my mother, raising her glass of gin and tonic high above her head. Liquid sloshed over the rim, down onto her fingers. She licked it off, laughing.

  “To Point Oakes Park,” we all chorused.

  The night air wrapped around us, blanketing us, cocooning us.

  * * *

  “Deacon, you bastard, I thought… going to… with the ignoring me.” The voice was right behind my head, and it was going in and out, like a bad connection on a cell phone.

  I whirled. I was in my Airstream, puttering around as I was getting ready for bed. It was late. We’d sat up drinking and talking and eating for hours. Everyone had been in great spirits. The buoyancy of that still boosted my mood now. The Airstream had never seemed so cozy, and I was pleased to be settled here for the night.

  Mads was standing behind me. But she was flickering—one second there, the next not.

  I furrowed my brow. “Mads?”

  “Finally,” she said. “What’s your deal? You know ignoring me doesn’t do anything.”

  “I wasn’t ignoring you,” I said.

  She moved forward and dissipated like smoke. Then reformed again. “—yelling at you over and over and you don’t answer.”

  “I must not be hearing you,” I said.

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “Right now, you’re not coming in very well. It’s like there’s a bad connection or something.”

  “It’s this place.” She gestured behind her at the amusement park. “It’s awful here.”

  Suddenly, it itched under my collar. I scratched at my neck absently. “It is awful,” I muttered. “But it’s also… not.”

  “If I can’t get through to you then I can’t help you,” she said. “I think you should leave.”

  “Look, all I want to do is find out about Negus. I think the spirits here know something. Maybe you could go and communicate with them, find out what they know. Then I could go.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not going into that place. No way.”