Inferno Park

by JL Bryan

  “Captain Scoop’s has a lot of perks,” Finn said. “First, the pay’s above minimum wage. Second, some top hotties from school work there. Third, their top-hottie friends come to see them. I’m swimming in golden vajayjay my whole shift.”

  “And how many of those girls do you actually hook up with?” Derek asked.

  “Plenty.”

  “Sure.” Derek rolled his eyes and approached the old wooden facades of the game booths.

  “Four, and I didn’t see this one coming when I started working there: the MILFs. Every day.”

  “I’m not into moms,” Derek said.

  “You’re a red-blooded mammal,” Finn said. “These hot moms come in there, and they always have to bend over to deal with their little kids. If they’re looking away from you, their panties pop right up over their jeans. And if they’re looking toward you and wearing a tank top, you get a great view. And when any of these girls get close to the display cooler, you know, to look at the ice cream, their nipples pop right out at you while they’re trying to decide between Rainbow Sherbert and Brownie Fudge Crunch.”

  “You’re a total perv, man. You should go into porn.” Derek grabbed the chained front of a game booth with both hands and pulled, and the rotten wood ripped away from the rusty padlock. “You don’t talk about anything but sex, girls, tits, and sex.”

  “Is there something else worth talking about?” Finn asked.

  Derek shoved aside the wooden panel that had blocked off the game booth. Inside, a couple of dented trash cans lay on the floor. The painted backdrop showed a cartoon possum poking its head up out of a dumpster.

  “You recognize this game?” Derek asked, climbing over the counter and dropping inside the booth.

  “Yeah, Playing Possum,” Finn said. “You threw this little bean-bag possum and tried to get it inside one of the trash cans. The smaller the trash can, the bigger the prize.”

  “This is what I’ve been thinking about, as long as we’ve been talking about breaking into the park,” Derek said. He hoisted the largest trash can.

  “This game?”

  “No.” Derek slammed the trash can into something under the counter that Finn couldn’t see. “Think about it. The sinkhole opens up, everybody runs. All these booths and shops and crap get abandoned. How much money do you think they left behind?” Derek slammed the trash can again.

  “I’m guessing none,” Finn said. “Money would be the one thing worth grabbing.”

  “Yeah, if it was your money.” Derek slammed the can a third time, and something cracked under the counter. “But what if you’re just some high school kid with a stupid summer job? Are you gonna grab the cash out of the drawer, or just run and save your own ass?”

  “I don’t know. Probably my own ass. But somebody must have come for the money by now.”

  “They locked it up tight five years ago, nobody in or out since then. Help me search all these old places, and we’ll split whatever cash we find.” Derek tossed the trash can aside, reached under the counter, and lifted out a cash drawer so he could see it in the roller coaster lights.

  Finn leaned over to look, fairly interested in the prospect of free money.

  At first glance, the drawer looked empty. Derek lifted one panel after another, ultimately discovering a total of seventeen cents wedged into a back corner.

  “We’re rich!” Finn said.

  “But you see what I’m talking about,” Derek said. “Let’s split up and search Fools’ Gold.”

  “And you’re sure I’d rather be doing this instead of making out with those sophomore girls?” Finn asked. “Because I’m not so sure.”

  “If we find even one store with cash hidden in it, it could be worth hundreds of dollars,” Derek said.

  Finn sighed. “How long will it take?”

  “You search that half of town, I’ll search this half, starting with the saloon,” Derek said. “Whatever we find, we split evenly.”

  “Fine, but you owe me half of seventeen cents.” Finn held out his hand.

  “That was before you started helping.”

  “You’re a cheap bastard. Let’s get this over with.” Finn crossed the muddy street.

  Finn started with El Dorado, a food booth fronted with a fanciful Aztec city. It had served, not surprisingly, nachos and burritos. The back half of the booth had burned away, but some of the front remained like the ruins of ancient city.

  He checked the cash register drawer, and was surprised to find two entire dollars, their edges singed. He thought about shouting about his find to Derek, then wised up and pocketed the money instead.

  He poked around a couple of unrecognizably burnt buildings, then stepped through the shattered display window of the Fools’ Gold Mercantile, which had once sold cowboy hats and plastic spurs alongside the standard jumble of amusement-park souvenirs like seashell lamps and flamingo keychains.

  Its racks were overturned and empty now, and a jagged crack as wide as Finn’s thumb curved across the floor and out of sight.

  He found the cash register already smashed open on the dusty floor. He kicked the empty cash drawer aside.

  This is stupid, Finn thought.

  He walked out, following the wide crack in the pavement past a ride with four big cars shaped like hefty pink pigs, each with a pair of ridiculously tiny angel wings on its sizable haunches. The pig cars were mounted around a giant wagon wheel laid on its side. When the ride was in motion, the pigs would go around and around, and maybe up and down a little—it was pretty much a kid’s ride, and Finn barely remembered it at all.

  Now the pigs were coated in years of accumulated grime, giving them a mottled, diseased look. Their oversized smiles were like sickened fever grins.

  Finn could hardly read the faded name of the ride, in puffy pink letters on the sky-blue wooden sign: WHEN PIGS FLY. Below the words, a fat cartoon pig with tiny white wings reclined on a cloud, its arms behind its head, napping contently.

  Tucked into a back corner of Fool’s Gold, almost hidden behind the pig ride, was a long wooden shed of a building. The sign out front, also hand-painted and badly faded, read PORK BELLY’S BBQ, with a double-chinned cartoon pig gleefully digging into a plate of barbecue, a fork in each hand, dark sauce drooling down its chin.

  Finn approached the old food stand, which was practically tucked under the support pylons of the Starland Express. It was so close that none of the light from the roller coaster tracks high above actually fell onto it, leaving it in a pool of shadow in the back corner of the ghost town.

  It wasn’t just another food stand, though, but a restaurant with batwing saloon doors. Finn had to walk up five steps to its sloped, crooked front porch, which was overgrown with a curtain of thorny vines.

  The porch boards groaned and shifted under his feet as he crossed to the doors. He reached out and nudged one open with a rusty creak, then stepped inside.

  It was dark as a cave, and his first impression was the overwhelming smell. The odor of old smoke exuded from the rank wooden walls, and beneath that, as if radiating from the moldy floorboards, was the stench of rancid grease. The air itself seemed embedded with smell of charred pig carcasses.

  He shined his cell phone around like a flashlight. The interior was paneled in cheap pine, with pig heads mounted near the ceiling, the way people usually mounted deer heads. He couldn’t tell if they were fake or real.

  The tables were overturned, several of the chairs smashed. All the wooden shutters were drawn and bolted from the inside, sealing out any hope of light.

  Finn advanced slowly into the place. His shoes stuck to the floor and had to be peeled free with each step. A serving counter ran along one wall and ended at a sales counter all the way across the restaurant. He walked along it, shining his light into what had once been a refrigerated display with sliding glass doors, now offering plate after plate of formless black filth.

  He heard a clattering sound.

  Finn raised his phone to look through the open win
dow into the kitchen behind the counter, but his light didn’t penetrate far into the gloom. He glimpsed a few dirty pots and pans, but not much else.

  He heard a squeal and a clatter in the kitchen, and he turned and ran for the door.

  Probably just a rat, he told himself, but he didn’t want to find out. He crossed the sawdust street to look for Derek and tell him he was done searching for money and would now be leaving to find the girls.

  Derek was inside the Vintage Portrait Shoppe, where people could have old-looking photographs taken in a variety of period costumes against matching backdrops. The scene was currently set to a kind of Arabian Nights theme, showing a cave full of treasure and a genie wafting up from a magic lamp.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Finn asked.

  Derek stood at a rack of clothes, tossing frock coats and fancy dresses onto the floor. It looked like he’d already dumped out a chest of costume jewelry and a trunk of hats.

  “Searching, man,” Derek said.

  “You’re not going to find money in there,” Finn said. “Check the cash register.”

  “It’s gone. I have a feeling about this place, though...” Derek shoved the rolling clothes rack aside in frustration. He knocked over several faceless busts holding wigs of varied styles and colors, then he turned and stared at the Arabian Nights backdrop on the wall. “There,” he said.

  “Dude, that’s a picture of treasure, not the real stuff,” Finn said. “I’m out of here.”

  “Wait!” Derek ran to the big print and kicked it. After an experimental tug, he made it roll up, revealing an Old West street scene behind it. Behind that, a spooky castle. Behind that, an actual solid wood-paneled wall with a small square door no more than a foot high.

  “How did you know that was there?” Finn asked, pointing to the little door.

  “I could just feel it.” Derek knelt by the tiny door, took the knob, and pulled it open. Finn squatted down beside him, shining his phone light inside the cold, drafty opening.

  Beyond the door was a little concave area scooped out of raw dirt. He leaned closer. Just below floor level sat a dirt-encrusted wooden box.

  “There.” Finn pointed, and Derek scooped it out, blowing the dirt off the lid. It was the size of a jewelry box, carved around the edges with hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades.

  “It’s heavy,” Derek whispered. “I bet it’s money. I bet it’s a lot of money.”

  “Open it,” Finn whispered back.

  Derek cleared his throat, rubbed his hands together, then raised the lid with his fingertips. More dirt spilled out of the little playing-card symbols carved on top. The box’s rusty hinges squeaked as he opened it.

  Inside, the box was divided into change compartments, like the inside of the cash drawers they’d been searching, but each compartment was brimming with dusty gold coins, carved with eagles, Indian heads, or some lady’s face.

  “Are those real?” Finn asked. “They can’t be real.”

  Derek lifted one of the coins and rubbed the dust away with his thumb. Then he bit it.

  “Are you serious?” Finn asked him.

  “The real stuff’s got a certain feel to it, a certain weight, and a special taste,” Derek said. “It just whispers ‘money, money, money.’ This is real.” He looked over the box full of gold. “It’s got to be worth hundreds, maybe thousands. Maybe we’re rich. I’m the fucking troll king, bitches!”

  “What is that, some Harry Potter shit?”

  “Just something we used to say as kids.” Derek blushed and looked away, embarrassed.

  Finn picked up a gold coin. It was smooth-textured and heavier than it looked. “How did you know it was there?”

  “I didn’t. Maybe I can smell money.” Derek stuffed two handfuls of coins into his pockets.

  “Hey, half of those are mine!” Finn said, grabbing out his own double handful.

  When they’d filled their pockets, the box was still half full of gold. Derek hoisted it up, his pants sagging low.

  “Why are you carrying the gold?” Finn whispered.

  “You want me to carry the light instead? This shit’s heavy,” Derek said.

  “Okay, you carry it.”

  Finn double-checked for more boxes or coins, but the dirt cavity behind the wall was empty, already crumbling, as though they’d disturbed it into collapsing.

  They walked out of the portrait studio into warm yellow light. The street lanterns glowed all through Fools’ Gold, illuminating a dusty Old West street banked by wooden buildings with long porches. It was as if the lights had come up on a stage set.

  A piano, or a recording of one, played fast and loud somewhere inside the Triple-Z Saloon. The lights glowed on the Playing Possum game, where the trash cans had been set up and a bean-bag possum lay waiting on the front counter. The Shoot-Em-Up Puppets had come to life, too, resembling a little theater stage studded with light bulbs, the red curtains drawn back to show the endless loop of puppets parading across it: the Indian war horse, the cowboy pig, the bank robber coyote with his six-shooter drawn, his black hat low and his bandana pulled up to his nose.

  Finn walked out into the street, amazed at how different it looked, the heaps of broken clutter gone, the mud replaced by a layer of dry, fresh sawdust.

  “What the hell happened?” he asked Derek. “Why did all the lights come on?”

  “Who cares? We have to talk about how to hide this gold from everyone else,” Derek said. “I say we just sneak out to your car right now.”

  “You want to take off?” Finn asked. He looked up from the thick fresh sawdust on the ground, and his jaw dropped at the sight of a building next to the Triple-Z Saloon. It must have been completely dark when he’d passed it before, or he definitely would have noticed it.

  It was a two-story wooden building following the same Old West theme, but sheer pink curtains hung in its windows, and little hearts were carved all along the front of the building. Its name was painted in glittering letters above the entrance: THE HEART OF GOLD HOTEL.

  In the windows on the upper floor, silhouettes of shapely women passed back and forth behind the pink curtains. On the lower floor, more lighted pink curtains with lacy trim hung in the entrance, at the center of the hotel’s front porch. Batwing doors hung in front of the curtain, and a heart was carved at the spot where the doors met, one half carved into each door so that the heart would split apart when they opened.

  “Look at that.” Finn walked slowly toward the building’s soft pink lights. “I know that wasn’t there before.”

  “Who cares? We gotta get going,” Derek said, hefting the box of stolen treasure.

  The pink curtains parted. A woman with her hair done up in an elaborate heap of curls stepped through the curvy batwing doors, smiling right at Finn with her dark red lips. She could have been one of the hot moms he liked to admire at the ice cream parlor. She wore a long calico dress with puffy sleeves and a neckline so deep that he could see the fringe of her scarlet bra. Gold jewelry glittered at her ears, neck, wrists, and fingers.

  “Uh, hi,” Finn said, approaching her. She strolled up the railing of the wooden walkway in front of the wooden hotel, waving a folding paper fan at herself.

  While she gazed down at him, two girls emerged from the batwing doors and sauntered up on either side of her. They were younger, closer to Finn’s own age, in red and black dresses cut high in the front to reveal fishnet stockings and tall, high-heeled boots. Their hair was also done in elaborate curls and braids and decorated with tall feathers. Their faces were heavily painted, and they regarded Finn with distant, appraising looks.

  One of them, the red-haired girl on his left, resembled Kylie Winchester, an older girl who’d once lived in his neighborhood. Finn had fantasized about her before she’d vanished on the day of the sinkhole, though he’d done the same about every girl on his street, and a few of their moms, too. And one or two of their grandmas, when he was reaching for some new fantasy material.

  “Let�
�s get out of here!” Derek grabbed his arm, but Finn shook him off and walked closer to the porch railing.

  “Come on up, sweetie,” said the lady in the calico dress. “If you want a good time.”

  “I do.” Finn climbed straight up over the railing, not even bothering to walk a few feet to use the steps. The three women moved in around him, and he smelled their rich, sweet perfumes, tangy and tempting in the air.

  “We want to have a good time, too,” the one in calico said, touching his cheek with her silky gloved hand.

  “But you must pay a price,” said the girl who looked like Kylie Winchester.

  “You got it,” Finn whispered, intoxicated by the sight and smell of them as their fingertips stroked his face and arms. He brought out a handful of gold coins from his pocket. “Take what you want.”

  “What the fuck are you doing up there, Finn?” Derek shouted from the ground. “Get away from them!”

  “One minute,” Finn mumbled. He wished he could slap Derek away like an annoying fly.

  “Is that all?” The girl who looked like Kylie frowned with her deep red lips. “I hoped it would last a little longer.”

  “Don’t forget to save some for me,” said the other girl, taking Finn’s arm. She caressed his bicep. “Oh! He’s so strong.”

  “And so big.” The lady in calico laid her hands on his hips and pressed herself against him, gazing up at him with a hungry look in her hazel eyes. She licked her lips as she took his entire handful of gold coins. She gave the two younger girls one coin each and pocketed the rest. “We’ll have a lot of fun with this boy,” she said in a husky voice, and the other two giggled.

  “This is really messed up, Finn!” Derek called from below. “We should go! Right now!”

  “We want you to come inside,” whispered the girl who looked like Kylie. She stood up on the toes of her leather boots and kissed his cheek. He could feel the lipstick stamp she left behind. The other younger girl kissed his other cheek, and then the lady in calico kissed him full on the mouth, her hands caressing their way down his chest and stomach.

  Finn was so horny he could barely breathe.