Inferno Park

by JL Bryan

  “Carter Roanoke, right?” Hanover asked. He made Carter think of a hefty overgrown frat boy, with a deeply uncomfortable and unhappy look in his eyes, as though growing old and fat had caught the man entirely off-guard. Hanover’s eyes shifted to Victoria, looking her up and down in a way that was less than appropriate. “And you are...?”

  “Victoria Samaris,” Carter said. “She’s a junior.”

  “Samaris? Your family bought the old Woodman place? That means we’re just about neighbors.”

  “Hi, neighbor,” Victoria said with an exaggerated wave and a big smile.

  The girl’s smile seemed to melt Hanover a little, or at least loosen his bitter crust.

  “Go on, sit down, kids.” He rubbed his stomach and scowled as he squatted into his office chair across from them. “Sorry, acid stomach. We’ve tried five different prescriptions, but that stuff just keeps shooting its way up my esophagus. What were you coming to talk about? The history of Conch City, you said?”

  “Yes, sir,” Carter said.

  “We appreciate you meeting with us, Mr. Hanover,” Victoria added.

  “Call me Teddy, everyone does.” The man grimaced as he twisted open a bottle of antacids. “Too bad you can’t talk to my dad. He could stand on any spot in town and tell you everything that ever happened there since the town was founded. Dad was a great storyteller. It’s been a couple of years since he passed, but we still miss him. My sisters and I talk about him all the time.” Hanover nodded at family pictures on the wall of his office, depicting three different women, presumably the sisters. “He was a real character.”

  “I’m sorry about your father,” Victoria said.

  “It’s been hard on all of us.” Hanover looked down for a moment, as if in prayer or sad contemplation, then looked up with a hearty fake smile. “So what did you kids want to talk about? I only have a couple of minutes...”

  “We were interested in a man who worked for your father,” Victoria said. “Arthur Schopfer. He built haunted houses and amusements all over the country, including some here in town.”

  “This is about Starland?” Hanover frowned, his fake smile vanishing. “I don’t want to talk about Starland.”

  “Not so much about Starland itself, but about roadside art in America,” Victoria said. “The history of commercial tourism art and how it was shaped by the American highway system.”

  Carter couldn’t help smiling at how professional she sounded.

  Hanover, however, did not look as though he’d be smiling any more today.

  “Artie Schopfer. That’s a name I never expected to hear again.” Hanover shook his head.

  “Did you know him?” Victoria asked.

  “I knew him as the man who drove my dad out of his mind with wild ideas,” Hanover said. “Back in the seventies, he and my dad were inseparable. Schopfer kept pushing my dad to pour more and more money into that little amusement park. Every project was bigger and more expensive than the last...the Brain-Scrambler, with the dome, the dry ice fog, the twelve-foot scientist holding his lava-lamp flask by the entrance...”

  “Professor Atomic,” Carter said, unable to suppress a grin, which earned him a sour look from Hanover.

  “Do you have any idea how much it cost to keep that place stocked with dry ice all summer?” Hanover asked. “And that wasn’t enough for Schopfer—nothing ever was. We couldn’t just have a funhouse, we had to have a two-story haunted mansion maze full of hidden doors and secret rooms. We couldn’t just have a boat ride, it had to go through an elaborate animatronic jungle that Schopfer kept changing every season. Don’t even get me started on how much Inferno Mountain cost us—that thing was a monster. Couldn’t be a horror ride or a roller coaster, it had to be both, like we were Disney World instead of a dinky little park for the world’s cheapest tourists. Of course, the more my father spent, the more money Schopfer made. That park barely turned a profit until the eighties, when Schopfer finally stopped leeching off my dad and left town, probably to fill some other beach with giant tacky garbage.”

  “But the park was successful after that, right?” Carter asked, feeling defensive about the place.

  “Sure, there were a couple of good decades,” Hanover said. “We had to move a ton of devil t-shirts and keychains to help us pay for that ride. My father loved that park, though. He would have spent his last penny to keep it up and running. He kept the admissions prices lower than they needed to be, just because he wanted to the park available to everyone, not just rich kids.”

  “He sounds like a nice guy,” Carter said.

  “Everybody loved my dad. He was a born showman.” Hanover looked annoyed. “He really built this town into something. Probably best he didn’t live to see what became of it. It just would’ve killed him.” He looked closely at Carter, as though actually worried about Carter’s answer.

  Carter nodded. “Nothing’s been the same since the sinkhole.”

  “Do you know how to get in touch with Artie Schopfer now?” Victoria said.

  “Just look for a fool and his money, and you’ll find Schopfer in between. Or you can follow the trail of giant concrete gorillas and cheesy haunted houses he’s left all over the country, if Shopfer’s still alive at all. He hasn’t been around this town in decades.” Hanover looked between them. “Schopfer may have put up a few roadside attractions, but it was my father who really built this town. Remember that. You’re really doing a paper on Schopfer’s work? I don’t think the man deserves it.”

  “It’s just a high school project,” Victoria said. “It’s not a big deal.”

  Hanover sighed. “I could have my receptionist dig around for his contact information. If there’s nothing else...” He stood up, and Carter and Victoria did the same. Hanover shook their hands again. “It was nice meeting you kids, but I have a lot of serious work to do today.”

  Carter remembered the “important golf game” mentioned by his receptionist.

  “Thanks for your time,” Victoria said. “Should we ask your receptionist about Schopfer?”

  “We have a busy day today. She’ll probably call you next week.” Hanover smiled, but his eyes were cold, and he was clearly less than pleased with how the meeting had gone. “Enjoy your weekend.”

  As Carter and Victoria left, the receptionist gave them an unfriendly look over her small iceberg salad.

  “What do you think?” Victoria asked as they stepped into the elevator.

  “We have three minutes to get back to school.”

  “I meant about Mr. Hanover. Excuse me, I mean Teddy.”

  Carter laughed. “I don’t think he wants to help us.”

  “I hope his receptionist can get us in touch with Artie Schopfer.”

  “I hope she bothers trying,” Carter said.

  They raced back to school in Victoria’s car. Both of them were late to class, earning them each a detention for the following week.

  When the school day was over, Victoria again gave him a ride home.

  “Do you have to do the search party today?” she asked him as he got out of the car.

  “Yeah, it sucks. I hope that’s winding down, since everybody seems to think it’s pointless.” He looked at her for a moment while he worked up the nerve to ask his next question: “Do you want to hang out after that? I should be done by eight or nine. And it is, technically, Friday night...”

  “Okay.” She smiled. “I just have to be home by midnight, that’s my curfew.”

  “I’ll call you.” Carter walked away, knowing it was a bad idea—he was getting too far behind on his schoolwork, but something about the idea of spending more time with her made his heart thump faster.

  The search party drove in Ned Willoughby’s pick-up truck on a bumpy trail through the woods north of town, Carter sitting in the truck’s bed, the deputy riding shotgun and rolling his eyes. They wasted hours up there, finding no lost kids, but millions of mosquitoes, ticks, and flies.

  Carter called Victoria as soon as he got home.<
br />
  “What are we doing tonight?” she asked.

  “This town’s full of possibilities,” he told her, walking up the stairs to his apartment. “We’ve lost most of the good stuff, but there’s still Captain Scoop’s and the FastGas parking lot.”

  “No wonder this place was a major tourist destination.”

  “There’s the old shopping mall. Creepy, locked up, covered in graffiti. You’d love it.”

  “That sounds pretty great, actually, but I don’t think I’m in the mood for decay and loss tonight. You said some of the beach is still open to the public?”

  “East Beach. Nobody ever goes there, though.”

  “That sounds pretty ideal. Remember, I just got here from Michigan. I’m not jaded about living near the beach like everyone else. I want to go while there’s still a little summer left.”

  “We could do that,” Carter said, though he didn’t feel particularly thrilled about it.

  “I’ll get ready for the beach! See you in thirty minutes.”

  Carter took a quick shower, washing off his sweat from sitting out in the hot pick-up bed all afternoon with the sun beating down on him.

  He hadn’t been to the beach in years, not since his last trip there with his family when he was ten or eleven. It might be interesting to see at night, and it would almost surely be deserted.

  He couldn’t help thinking that going to the beach meant Victoria would be wearing some kind of swimwear, and he couldn’t help wondering what that might be. On the other hand, it also meant he would be shirtless. While his face and hands were deeply tanned, the rest of him was bleach-white from being trapped inside the MOOVIN’ ON coveralls all summer. It gave him an absurd two-tone look when his shirt was off, a goofy farmer’s tan.

  At least it would be dark on the beach.

  He changed into swimming trunks and walked to the door.

  “Where you going tonight?” his dad asked. Carter’s dad looked exhausted, sitting in his recliner and still wearing his green coveralls with his name patch, half-unzipped now to reveal a sweat-stained, faded Eight-Track shirt underneath. He was drinking a Jamaican Red Stripe and watching Spinal Tap on DVD.

  “Nowhere,” Carter said. “Just to the beach with that girl Victoria.”

  “To the beach with a girl doesn’t sound like ‘nowhere,’” his dad said. “Sounds like a dangerous amount of fun. Are you staying on top of school?”

  “Yep,” Carter lied. He would be caught up by Monday, he told himself.

  “What’s this girl like?”

  “She’s cool. She’s smart.”

  “She’s a good student?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Carter said, and his dad nodded.

  “Don’t swim out too far, stay where it’s shallow. Stay on the beach if you can. There won’t be anybody to help you if you get in trouble.”

  “I know, Dad.”

  “Go for the long walk on the beach scenario. Don’t have sex, and if you do, use a condom, even if she says she’s on the pill.”

  “I have to leave the room now,” Carter said, feeling his face turn red with embarrassment.

  “I mean it. You don’t want to get a girl pregnant at your age—”

  “Good night!” Carter hurried outside and down the stairs.

  When he climbed into Victoria’s car, she had a wide smile for him, her knees bouncing excitedly, just as they did when she was scared. She was still in her usual black jeans and dark blouse.

  “You’re really excited about the beach,” he said.

  “I even made a picnic.” She pointed to the wicker basket on her back seat while she drove out of his apartment complex. “And I brought beach towels. Where’s yours?”

  “I forgot about that part.”

  “The part where you get out of the water?” she laughed. “Good thing I brought three.”

  “Why three?”

  “Three’s a lucky number.”

  They drove through the darkened strip malls of town, turning down Beachview Drive at its eastern intersection with Gulf Coast Highway, an intersection inhabitant by the remnants of Conch City’s once-thriving hospitality industry: a Holiday Inn franchise, a gas station, an International House of Pancakes.

  The road became dark and moonlit. Victoria pulled into the public parking lot at the beach, deserted except for one old beater of a car with a flat tire and multiple police citations tucked under its windshield wiper.

  “It’s so quiet here,” Victoria whispered. Ahead of them, rickety wooden stairs led up to a wooden boardwalk that crossed the high dunes toward the endless darkness of the ocean. There was no sound but the water crashing ashore. Countless stars glittered in the clear night sky above, visible all the way to the horizon.

  Carter took the picnic basket and led the way up the old stairs, which creaked and wobbled beneath them. They crossed over the dunes and descended another set of steps, far more weathered and creaky, down to the beach.

  The beach was wide open, with no other visitors, just a narrow strip of dull sand chewed away by storms over the years. The black ocean reflected the stars.

  “This could be a good spot to take pictures,” Carter said.

  “I really don’t feel like photography tonight,” she told him. “I just want to swim and forget about everything.”

  “That sounds good.” Carter knew how she felt. If he could spend a little time not thinking about the missing kids, or the amusement park, or school, it would be an incredible relief.

  They planted their picnic basket next to the collapsed remnants of a pair of wooden lounge chairs.

  “Ready?” he asked. “You still want to swim?”

  She nodded and lifted up her shirt, revealing the upper half of a black one-piece swimsuit. He tried not to show too much interest in how she looked in the skintight garment. When she unbuttoned her jeans and began to push them down, he made himself look away before the sight of her taking off her pants got him too excited.

  He took off his shirt and tossed it aside, and a smile twitched on her face as she regarded the arctic whiteness of his chest and stomach.

  “I didn’t expect you to be so white under there,” she said.

  “What? I worked on this tan all summer.”

  Victoria smiled and turned away, and he felt a little breathless as he watched her retreating back and her bare shoulders, legs, and feet. He was definitely starting to like her more than he’d intended.

  You’re not looking for a relationship right now, said a voice in his mind. Focus on the future...

  If you’re not looking for that, another voice countered, what the hell are we doing here tonight?

  Shut up, both of you, he told the voices in his head. We’re just swimming.

  Carter joined her on the hard-packed sand at the edge of the shore. A wave of warm ocean water drifted in, drenching their feet.

  “This is so pretty,” she said. “I can’t believe you never come out here.”

  “Too many memories.”

  She nodded and waded out deeper into the water, the little waves breaking against her stomach.

  They floated on their backs, looking up at the moon and stars. There was no contact between them, and very little talking. The mood was contemplative rather than romantic, but he liked just being with her, letting her presence quietly enrich his world.

  “I wish I could just dissolve into the ocean,” she whispered at one point. “Just for a while.”

  “I know,” he said.

  He wasn’t sure how much time they spent out there, maybe half an hour, maybe an hour. By some unspoken agreement, they swam back to the beach at the same time.

  “What’s in our picnic basket?” Carter asked while he toweled off.

  “Mineral water and sandwiches.” She handed him one wrapped in parchment paper. “Sprouted-grain bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, with chevre and olive tapenade.”

  “And you’re legally allowed to call that a sandwich?”

  “What would you prefer? Meatballs and c
orn chips?”

  “Yeah, give me that one!”

  “You can’t live on junk food.” She handed him a bottle of Evian. “Your diet does more to shape your health than anything else.”

  “I’ve survived so far.”

  “By some miracle.” She opened her own bottled water and sipped it. “How’s your sandwich?”

  “Not as bad as it sounds.” The bread was chewy but good, the vegetables crisp, the goat cheese tangy.

  “You know, I’m really glad I met you,” Victoria said. “I felt kind of lost the first few weeks I was down here. I don’t think I belong in this town.”

  “Nobody really belongs here anymore. That’s why everybody’s moving away.”

  “I felt lost until all this craziness started,” Victoria told him. “Now I just feel confused. I still feel weird at school, like people think I’m strange.”

  “You could try getting involved with more stuff. You could volunteer to take pictures for the school newsletter or the yearbook...”

  “But that seems kind of cheesy. I try to be a serious photographer.”

  “It’s good padding for your college application, though,” Carter said.

  “You’re always thinking about the future.”

  “Better than thinking about the past.”

  “Maybe.” She crumpled her paper sandwich wrapper and returned it to the basket. “We need music.”

  “I’ve got it.” Carter brought out his phone, which he’d stashed into the basket with his wallet while they swam.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “About ten.”

  “Good. I don’t feel like going home yet.”

  “Wait, I’ve got a voice mail.” Carter clicked the little envelope icon.

  “Hey, it’s Jared,” the recording said. “We found that side entrance you told us about, and we’re going in. Where are you? Answer your phone!”

  “What’s going on?” Victoria asked, in response to the shocked look on Carter’s face.

  “Jared and his friends went into the park tonight. They’re already inside.” Carter checked the time on the missed call. “It’s from an hour ago.”