Dark Ride

by Todd Loyd

  Still, the wolf continues his desperate crawl. His green eyes are burning, remaining focused on Amy.

  Mason and Scotty manage to free Jack and Amy, and Jack utters, “Thanks guys” as they rush toward the door.

  None of them want to spend one more second in the Grove.

  Chapter 81

  In the next room, the four teens squat with hands on hips, sucking in whatever oxygen they can.

  “Is every room going to be a trial like that?” Jack moans to himself.

  “Did you see the size of his teeth?” Scotty asks in a gasping voice.

  “Whose teeth, wolf or spider?” Jack answers.

  Amy proudly hugs her brother and says, “Scotty, thank you. You really saved us back there.”

  In agreement, Jack extends a hand to Scotty and says, “Thanks, man.”

  Jack and Amy turn to Mason, waiting for his show of thanks to Scotty. Instead, the older boy asks, “What took you so long back there, man? Amy and Jack could have been toast, or eggs. Well, actually, probably bacon. I'm hungry. We need to get out of here or find some food.”

  Mason trudges off, and Scotty's once-beaming face falls.

  Jack comes to Scotty's defense by saying, “Come on, Mason, we got out of there didn't we?”

  Scotty takes of his glasses and fiddles with them. His mouth is tight, and his eyes are squinting. Jack realizes that he's thinking about something and says to himself, Come on, Scotty, give Mason a piece of your mind.“He's right. Sorry, guys, I really froze,” Scotty apologizes.

  Amy gives Mason a scolding look and says, “Are you forgetting that he did not let us die. If it wasn't for whatever he did to that spider…. Of all the nerve, Mason Chick….”

  Waving his arms in the air, Jack interrupts, “Okay, okay. Scotty, how did you do that to the spider? It just, like, shrunk.”

  After relating the story of how he found the shrinking potion, Scotty's confidence is restored.

  “We're not out of the woods yet, guys,” Mason points out.

  Although the pun was not intentional, Mason's point is valid, and Jack knows it. With every new room, new danger awaits.

  Jack looks around at their current surroundings while Mason whips out the map from the work belt.

  “Looks like we are back on track,” Mason informs. “We need to go left, through those doors at the end of the room.”

  The room is, of course, dark. The walls are almost black and the center is not much lighter. Still, the group can tell that more stumps litter this room and another set of doors to the right is barely visible.

  “Looks as if a lumberjack went to town in here,” Jack notes.

  “Either that or eight-foot-tall beavers,” Mason quips.

  From the far end of the room, the group begins to hear a humming noise. It's not a mechanical noise, but an actual human sound. Jack eventually recognizes the tune as “Frère Jacques.” After turning his eyes to the dark corner of the room, he barely makes out two small legs, which are just visible below the knees. The rest of the body is shrouded in the shadows.

  “Hello?” Jack calls. By this point, the others also see the focus of Jack's call.

  There is no answer, but the humming continues.

  “Excuse us, but….” Scotty beckons.

  The humming continues.

  “Let's just go,” Amy says while pushing at Jack's side.

  Jack, Amy, and Scotty prepare to simply avoid the person and walk out the door at the left end of the room. Mason, however, does not move an inch because he is obviously curious.

  All of a sudden, the humming stops, and the legs start to move.

  The three who are leaving stop their momentum. Even their breathing seems to halt.

  Then, from the shadows, a small girl emerges. She is clad in a tattered smock dress, which at one point must have been white, although large brown streaks and yellowing stains have overtaken the garment. The girl's face is ruddy, smeared with what appears to be dried mud, and medium-length tangled brown hair hangs from her head. The entire package is creepy, but none of her unkempt features can take the group's attention away from the empty look on her expressionless face or her pair of haunting blue eyes.

  The girl takes another step toward them and stops. She levels her hands at her chest and fiddles with a small brown box the size of a domino, but she never takes her eyes off them as she begins to hum another bar of her haunting tune. With one hand, she pulls a match across the box. Fire begins to sizzle at the end of the stick and casts a flickering shadow across her face. The effect is beyond disturbing.

  The humming stops, as if the flame provides a solace for her. The girl now watches the fire burn, and no one is sure whether to move or not.

  Just before the light burns out, she asks, “Would you like to buy some matches?”

  The light fades out. She begins humming again, “Frère Jacques, frère Jacques….”

  Chapter 82

  Although Amy feels this is the creepiest display the group has seen in any of the rooms, she can't help but feel some empathy for the girl and wonders, Is she trapped in here, too? Amy begins walking toward the girl, but is halted by the extended arm of Jack. Amy shoots Jack a quizzical look, but there is no sternness in Jack's face. Amy understands his intent and rethinks her decision to go to the girl.

  Instead, she calls to her, “Um, little girl, what are you doing here?”

  There is no verbal response or even a hint of recognition that she has been spoken to. The creepy little girl simply strikes another match and waits as the light flickers out.

  “Are you trapped?” Scotty asks.

  Again, she stands motionless. Here pale blue eyes are staring not at the teens but at some empty void.

  “So, this is interesting,” Scotty says, breaking the tension. “Maybe we should be moving on then, right guys?”

  “Right,” Jack confirms.

  “No, not yet,” Mason retorts. “What's she doing? Why is she here?”

  Amy wants so desperately for the girl to say something else, thinking it would be nice to converse with another female after being cooped up in the building with boys all night. Also, for all Amy knows, this seemingly frail little girl could have wandered into this world just like they had and is now defenseless in this horrible place.

  Amy urges, “Please, talk to us. Are you lost?”

  Again, nothing.

  “All righty then. That settles it. Scotty, shall we?” Jack asks and takes a large, deliberate step to the left side of the room.

  The girl strikes a match. Then a blink of something in her registers. In a tiny, breathy voice, she whispers from her chapped lips, “No, just waiting.”

  All four of them are startled at the sudden eerie voice of the girl.

  “Uh, waiting? Waiting for who?” Amy asks in the sweetest voice she can muster.

  “My grandmother.”

  “On, no,” Scotty utters in a flash of recognition.

  “What?” Jack asks with more than a little trepidation.

  Scotty grabs his friends by their arms and starts dragging them toward the door. He says, “We gotta leave right now.”

  Chapter 83

  Mason fights off Scotty's hold on him and says, “What're you talking about? It's a little girl.”

  “Hans Christian Anderson,” Scotty whispers.

  “Hands, wrist, and who?” Mason asks.

  This time, Scotty enunciates, “Hans Christian Anderson.”

  Mason blows through his lips, making a dismissive sound, and says, “So what?”

  “Well,” Scotty says, “if you knew anything about children's literature, which you don't, you would know that in most of Anderson's tales somebody ends up dead.”

  Jack likes Scotty's verbal jab against Mason, although this information is unsettling.

  Up to this point in the group's conversation, the girl has continued humming. Then suddenly, she strikes a match and goes quiet until it burns out. Afterward, she resumes humming again.

&nbs
p; “Um, I'm with Scotty,” Amy states.

  Jack gulps and looks around the room, suspecting an attack from some unknown assailant. For the first time, he notices that the ground appears scorched. Also, in clusters around various stumps near the darkened corners of the room, blackened bones are visible.

  Jack looks at Scotty, points to the charred remains, and infers, “She burned them, huh?”

  Scotty solemnly nods his head until the flick of a match is lit, at which point the group looks over at the girl.

  Once again, she asks, “Would you like to buy some matches?”

  Jack, wide-eyed, looks at Amy.

  “Why would we want to buy matches?” Mason asks dismissively.

  Amy and Scotty start backing toward the door, and Amy asks, “Jack?” Leaving?”

  “Yes, like now,” Jack answers.

  “Would you like to buy some matches?” the girl repeats, but this time there is a little more vigor in her voice.

  “Uh, no,” Mason replies firmly.

  The girl takes a step toward Mason.

  “Give her some money. Give her money!” Scotty chirps.

  Jack whips his backpack around a digs through its contents for a dollar bill. Holding it out to the girl, he says, “Here, yes, sold!”

  However, the girl's mouth turns down at the corners, and her brow creases in apparent anger.

  Jack grabs another dollar and asks, “Is this enough?”

  The girl takes another step, and her pale face begins to show a tint of red.

  There is obvious rage building inside the girl, and she says, “You should buy some matches.”

  Mason demands, “What do you want? He gave you like—”

  “The pouch!” Amy says and jabs her hand into Jack's pocket to retrieve what Victor had given to them.

  “Hey!” Jack objects, but the small girl is directly in front of him now with her hand on another match. She has started humming again, and her tune sounds forced and foreboding.

  The girl strikes a match and raises it before Jack, who lifts a hand instinctively. The flickering flame licks the base of his palm, and he cries out, “Hey! What do you think…?” Jack pulls his stinging palm back and raises it to his mouth.

  Amy raises three small coins from the pouch in front of the girl's face and says, “Here.”

  The girl takes her other hand and places her thumb and index finger over the burning match end, snuffing the flame. Then, after lowering both hands, she turns to face Amy and takes the coins. From an unseen pouch in her dress, she produces a small matchbox and hands it to Amy, who in turn gives it to Scotty to place in his cavernous pockets.

  In a zombie-like trance, the girl walks over to a stump, sits down, and stares into an empty void.

  Jack looks at the bewildered face of Mason and questions, “Now we go?”

  “Now we go,” Mason confirms.

  The group heads for the doors on the left end of the room. As they pass through them, Amy pauses and looks back at the girl on the stump. She sees the now placid girl strike another match and stare blankly into the flickering flame. Once it burns out, the humming commences again.

  “Frère Jacques….”

  Chapter 84

  Three flashlights spray rays of light across the silent rooms of the Enchanted Forrest. Clyde directs Oliver to go to his right and Colton to his left. Thus far, the search has been fruitless. Within the walls of each room, the search party is met by the same silent rooms with odd shadows caused by the emergency lighting.

  As the three park employees enter the room with the giant tables and fireplace, Clyde utters, “This is where I left them.” He recalls that his last words to the teens had been, “Stay in the cart,” but he sees that there is no cart in this room. Sweat pours from his brow, and he looks at the doors that lead to the next room where he last saw Douglas Finch all those years ago.

  Clyde glowers intently; his mind is full of dread. He thinks, Through those doors…. Where had he gone? Where were those kids? This cannot be happening again.

  A hand on his shoulder interrupts the old man's thoughts. “What do you think these kids are up to?” asks Oliver.

  “I don't know. Let's get moving. Colton, come on.”

  Colton is looking at the fireplace. He calls out, “Hey, Clyde, Mr. Sparkman, something is missing here.”

  “What is it, kid?”

  “Well, there's usually a golden goose on this fireplace.”

  “What do you make of that, Clyde?” Oliver questions.

  “Just another missing prop. A lot of stuff has been disappearing here lately.” Inside his head, he tries to recall if he had seen the goose earlier that night, but he just cannot remember. It's probably nothing, he thinks.

  “Come on,” he calls and walks toward the next room.

  As soon as he enters, there is an empty cart sitting still in the middle of the room.

  “Well,” Oliver notes, “we know they were here at least. Number 732: this is the cart you guys were in.”

  Colton swings his light around the tent and says, “I guess they moved on.”

  Oliver states, “Either they are in one of the rooms ahead having a laugh from playing some kind of twisted game of hide and seek, or they can't get out. Maybe the power outage caused a door ahead to prevent them from exiting.”

  “Yep, you're probably right, Oliver,” Clyde says, but he knows in his heart that Oliver's wrong about either possibility.

  A faint muffled sound comes from behind the wall over Clyde's right shoulder. Colton hears it and straightens up, stopping his search of the tent. Also in response, Oliver spins his light to the wall.

  The old man walks over to the source and puts his ear to the wall. He hears another muffled shout. This time it is distinctly a boy's voice.

  “It's them, it's got to be them,” Colton asserts.

  “Where are they?” Oliver asks. “Is there anything behind that wall, Clyde?”

  “Ten feet of weeds, a fence, then the highway.”

  Colton theorizes, “Maybe it's just reverberating from somewhere else, like the sound is coming from here but it is really coming from one of the rooms ahead?”

  “I don't know much about acoustics, Colton,” Oliver says.

  Clyde waves a hand at the others, signaling them to be quiet. However, no more sounds are heard.

  Colton begins running his hands against the smooth wall of the room and says, “Maybe there's, like, a secret passage or something.”

  “You watch too much television, kid. I am banking on your first theory. Let's move on,” Oliver says as he begins to walk to the next set of doors.

  Colton shrugs and joins Sparkman.

  Clyde, however, remains at the wall, peering at it.

  After a few more seconds, Oliver asks, “You coming, Clyde?” while standing with one foot out of the room.

  “Yeah,” Clyde says. He rubs his eyes and takes a step to catch up with Oliver, who has disappeared through the doorway.

  The others have no idea about the old ghosts Clyde is fighting in his mind.

  Meanwhile, music begins to play in the room, but the three-man search party is already out of earshot.

  Chapter 85

  The disturbing encounter with the girl has left the group a little more cautious as they enter the next room. Before any of them says a word, Jack makes a complete sweep of the area with his flashlight. No one wants to be surprised by creepy girls or bears this time. Thus far, though, they are relived to find that the only visible object in the room is a large four-foot brick wall that spans about six feet in length with a forest scene painted on it. After spying this, Jack signals to the others, and they creep up to the wall on one side. Amy is wielding her stick; Mason, his axe; Jack, his backpack; and Scotty's picked up a rock.

  As they creep to the wall, Jack whispers to Scotty, “You can't throw left-handed.”

  “I can, too.”

  “Remember Mrs. Turner?”

  “Remember the spider?”

&
nbsp; Jack shrugs an okay. They get close the edge, and Mason solemnly signals with his hands counting down: three…two…one. All four jump out, ready to tackle any unseen assailant that's behind the wall.

  In front of them is one completely freaked-out deer. The fawn takes off hopping around the room looking for solace. Then, all of a sudden, to the group's shock, the deer jumps headfirst into the wall. Jack waits for the impact. However, the deer merely fades into the wall. Suddenly, the picturesque forest scene on the wall has a new fawn in the mural, just standing there placidly.

  “Now that beats everything,” Mason declares.

  Amy offers, “Bambi?”

  “Bambi,” Jack confirms. Walking over to the wall, Amy taps it with her stick. It appears solid.

  Even though all four of them are spellbound by the event, they have to admit that the spectacle does not seem all that unusual in the confines of this bizarre place. Eventually, they mentally return to the present situation.

  Jack slowly walks around the wall, and once he's assured that nothing is hiding behind it, he breaks the silence and says, “Let me see the map, Mason.”

  Mason opens up the map, but holds onto one side of it. Jack picks up the other side and examines the map for a second. Then he says, “There are two sets of doors in here. One dead center, the other to the right.”

  Jack wishes Mason would relinquish his death grip on the map, so he tries a diversion by asking, “So what's the story with the little pyromaniac back there?”

  Mason turns to hear what Scotty will say and drops his end of the map.

  “She's the Little Match Girl,” Scotty replies.

  “That was obvious,” Mason adds.

  “I didn't make up her name.”

  “Yeah, I know, it was hands, wrist, and mandible-er-son guy.”

  “Anyways, in her story, she is supposed to sell a bunch of matchboxes, and if she does not, her father gets very angry at her.”

  Amy asks, “Angry, how?”

  Scotty gives her a glance but says nothing.

  “What did she mean by waiting for her grandmother?” Amy asks.