Dark Ride

by Todd Loyd

  They smile at each other.

  Amy asks, “You ready to stand up?”

  Before Jack can answer, though, Amy is already pulling him to his feet. He's woozy, and he braces himself on the wall for support.

  Scotty approaches the two with Mason staggering alongside. Scotty is holding Lucky while Mason is looking around the room trying to register what just happened.

  “What happened to the lifeguard?” Mason lazily utters.

  The others exchange a look of concern, but Mason adds, “I'm kidding. There was a squirrel, though.”

  “Mason, we may need to see you to a doctor or something,” Scotty says.

  “I'm serious.”

  “Of course you are.” Mason agrees.

  The companions, all worse for the wear, shuffle one by one back to the ladder they were originally heading toward. Scotty and Amy take turns steadying the other boys. Amy, for one, has never been more thankful to get out of a room in her life. She is the last one to the ladder, and before she starts climbing, she gives one more glance in the direction of the piper. Then as she turns her gaze back to the ladder, something strange catches her eyes. She sees, midway down the tunnel, a squirrel, standing on two legs, watching her.

  Chapter 101

  Jack is the first one up the ladder. The cobwebs are starting to clear from his mind as he waits at the top of the exit for the other three. He sits giving no care to any dangers that may be lurking in this new room. He notices some grass and a tree or two then closes his eyes, just for a second. He thinks about obstacles he and his friends had encountered during the night. In comparison with the last 20 minutes of combat with the Pied Piper, Jack considers his group's overcoming of the other nemeses, such as the viper, the bear, the spider, and the matchstick girl, to have been a breeze. It's like every situation escalates in sheer terror, he thinks.

  Jack reaches down to help Amy rise out of the hole while Mason grumbles, “My head feels like a washing machine.”

  “You think you might have a concussion?” Jack asks.

  “Possibly.” Then Mason thinks for a second and adds, “If I collapse, just roll my body to some corner and come back for me.”

  The others are glad that Mason's sense of humor has not been lost. And, even though an hour ago Jack might have taken Mason up on this offer to leave him, things have now changed because of the mutual experience they shared down in the tunnel.

  They all take turns recounting the events in the sewer. Mason talks about the squirrel and his heroic cannonball. Jack speaks of his combat with the piper, and Amy retells her rescue of Mason, although she leaves out the part where Mason coughed up water into her mouth, and her final conflict with the piper.

  Scotty, however, has taken a seat on the floor and remained silent during the storytelling.

  Jack notices this and asks, “Okay, what gives, Scotty? You're being awful quiet.”

  Scotty briefly looks up at Jack and then buries his chin into his chest.

  As Amy goes through the episode with the piper again for Mason, Jack approaches Scotty and places a hand on his head.

  “Scotty? What's wrong?”

  Shaking off the gesture, a red-faced, crying Scotty whimpers, “I just could not move. I stood there watching.”

  Tears are flowing from his face as he pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  Scotty says, “Mason was drowning, Amy jumped in to help, you were fighting, and all I could do was…nothing.”

  “We made it out, didn't we?” Jack notes, trying to encourage him.

  “No thanks to me. I was too scared. I was…I'm a coward.”

  Jack responds, “You're not a coward, Scotty, so quit thinking you are. We need you in here. You shrunk that spider.”

  “Yeah, but only after I sat there watching you and Amy about to get eaten. What about next time? Am I simply going to watch my friends die?”

  “No, you're not. It was you who mixed that potion that saved my life. You did that, Scotty. Not Mason or Amy, but you.”

  “But what about—”

  “No, I don't want to hear it, Scotty.”

  Jack's assertive tone surprises himself, but he continues, “Okay, so you froze a couple of times. The three of us, well, we picked up your slack. Look, you are going to have to get up off your can and help us tonight. We can't make it out of here without you.”

  Jack's authoritative tone catches the attention of Amy and Mason, who join them.

  “You okay, Scotty?” his sister asks.

  “Yeah. I just needed a few seconds.”

  Scotty rises to his feet.

  “Good,” Jack confirms. “We've all had a rough night. I'm not sure how much longer we have to go before we finally get out of here, but we are all on the same page now. All the bickering needs to stop.”

  He shoots a look of confirmation at Mason, whose demeanor has changed to something weaker and less volatile. Mason nods.

  “Okay, now let me see the map,” Jack requests and holds a hand out to Mason, testing the newfound peace.

  Quickly, with no hesitation, Mason hands the parcel over and says, “I think that if the room we are in now is The Chasm, then we are only three rooms away from the vault. But we still have not found any keys.”

  “We can worry about that when we get there,” Jack asserts.

  “All right, let's get back to business,” Scotty affirms.

  Jack holds out a fist to Scotty, who reaches forward and gives it a bump with his.

  “So if we're in The Chasm, where's the chasm?” Scotty asks.

  All of a sudden, they hear “mah-ah-ah-ah” to their right. They now pay attention to the environment of the room and realize that they are standing in a lush green field, complete with goats.

  “Huh? Goats?” Jack mumbles.

  Chapter 102

  The wolf enters the sewer from a secret passageway. He looks around for any sign of the teenagers and sees the body of the piper pressed up against the side of the drain, almost entirely covered by rats.

  He infers that the kids had been here and that he is too late. They seem more resourceful than he had considered, and a disturbing thought enters his mind: What if they are too clever for even me? Nonsense, remember who you are. You are the wolf; they are your prey. Perhaps you will have a four-course meal?After reassuring himself, the wolf straightens and sniffs the air. He surmises that the kids had not been gone long and wonders if he should take the ladder up behind them. However, he decides that the resourceful group will be able to keep moving, so he determines to travel further into the tunnels to the next ladder where he can take another passage and ambush them on the other side.

  Chapter 103

  So far, none of the goats have made a violent gesture towards the teen, but Mason's worried and asks, “What if they charge at Amy?”

  “Um, charge Amy?” Jack responds.

  “She's wearing red. Oh wait—that's bulls. My bad,” Mason recalls.

  “Sure you're okay?” Jack asks.

  “I can still count by twos: three, six, nine, twelve…. Kidding.”

  Jack shakes his head. After their encounter with the piper, he is not sure whether or not the foursome could endure yet another close call. Although the break from danger had given the group time to heal mentally and physically, none of them had come through the journey unscathed. He had been bitten and apparently had nearly died; Mason was kicked in the jaw and nearly drowned; Scotty fell onto his shoulder through the vent and then was almost shot; and in addition to her hoodie catching on fire, Amy is being hunted by a wolf who wants to eat her. All in all, it has been a rough go for them.

  “Great last trip to Enchanted Forrest, huh?” Jack muses cynically.

  Still, Jack thinks the green field of this room is stunning. It's a plush verdant carpet of turf that supplies the goats with their sustenance.

  None of the group appears to be in any great rush to start navigating this huge room, the largest one thus far. There is an unspoken pause
of activity as if someone had called a timeout in this new room. But Jack soon starts getting antsy when he considers that another nefarious character could sneak up behind them. He determines that it's time to break the timeout.

  He clears his throat and announces, “So, let's have a look around, right?”

  “I'm not going anywhere near those goats,” Mason answers.

  “They're a third your size,” Amy counters. “And you aren't wearing red.”

  Mason shakes his head and says, “But who knows in this place? They could shoot lasers out of their eyes.”

  Ignoring the last comment and walking over to the center of the room, Amy says, “I think it's safe to say I know why this room is called the chasm.”

  She ushers the other boys toward her, and soon Jack and Mason realize why, too, after arriving at Amy's side. From this vantage point, they can see a large deep canyon that runs the entire length of the room, splitting it into two equal parts. The two sides of the cliffs are roughly 25 feet apart.

  “Over here,” calls Scotty, who had wandered off a bit from the others. He's standing by a wooden bridge that spans the width of the gorge. “It's a bit rickety, but I think it will hold,” Scotty estimates.

  Jack figures that the verbal berating he had given himself has possibly motivated Scotty to take some more initiative.

  “Lookout Mountain,” Jack utters.

  He and his family made annual trips to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and there, just before you made it to the zenith of the mountain, you had to cross a bridge similar to this one, a swinging rope bridge. Jack, who has never been a fan of heights, hated every step. And, to make things worse, Blair has no such fear. She liked to hop up and down on the bridge and cause Jack to cower down on his hands and knees and grip the nearest available adult. This caused a bit of embarrassment when he was ten and accidentally grabbed hold of a particularly large, tobacco-chewing tourist from Austin, Texas, instead of one of his parents..

  This bridge stretched over this present chasm is nowhere near as long as the Lookout Mountain one, but it is just as imposing to Jack, whose nerves are already worn thin.

  “What's up, Jack?” Amy asks, noticing the sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Oh, nothing,” he lies. “Mason, you going first?” Jack asks, assuming Mason would jump at the chance to be the alpha male again.

  “Nope, I think Scotty should go,” Mason answers.

  Jack is perplexed and thinks, Something is just not right with him. Is he trying to make Scotty man-up? No, that's not like Mason. Something must be wrong.

  “Okay, I'll go,” Scotty says and gulps.

  He slowly extends a foot over the first planks of the wooden bridge and presses down on it. A relieved expression crosses his face, and he declares, “It's pretty solid.”

  After being assured that the bridge will hold, Mason follows Scotty onto it.

  “Ladies first,” Jack says and extends his arm out over the bridge while bowing to Amy.

  “Why, thank you, kind sir, but I insist, you first,” Amy tells him and gives a curtsy in return.

  Jack considers how it seems odd to be having fun and flirting in this place. But, he figures, they're teenagers, and that's what they do.

  Although it is not a far walk from one side of the chasm to the other, for Mason, Jack, and Amy, it seems like crossing the bridge is taking forever. This is because Scotty, ever cautious, is taking deliberate steps. Jack imagines that he could count “ten Mississippi” in the time it takes Scotty to move one step.

  Jack extends his hand back to Amy, and she reaches out and clasps it. The boy looks back and she returns his gaze with a wry smile. It's exactly what the doctor ordered for Jack. He now realizes that all his previous worrying about whether or not Amy was agreeing with him or someone else didn't matter; It's obvious they like each other, and a disagreement here or there wasn't going to change that. His excitement about being in the throes of his first true crush makes Jack forget about fearing the chasm. In fact, the deep plunge to the unseen bottom of the cliff seems to hold no danger to Jack now. He is clearly under the protection of Cupid.

  The travelers are halfway across the chasm, when Jack suddenly remembers the words of the P.S. in Douglas Finch's notebook: “P.S. Do not cross the bridge.”

  Unfortunately, it is too late, for from below they hear a menacing growl, “Arrrggghhh.”

  “Great. Just great. What now?” Mason cries.

  Then, as if it had been shot upwards from a cannon, a huge horrible olive green creature flies from below the bridge to up above the bridge before landing on it with a thud, causing the entire structure to bounce. Looking up, Jack sees a massive troll blocking their path.

  Chapter 104

  Jack admonishes himself, thinking, I should have known from the first moment I saw the goats. It is so obvious, now. What was I thinking? And Scotty—Scotty of all people—should have known this bridge would be straight out of the “Three Billy Goats Gruff.”

  This troll is at least six-foot-five and is standing directly in front of Scotty. Jack thinks that it may be the most grotesque sight he has ever born witness to. It has green leathery skin, a bulbous nose with multiple black moles, and a mangy mess of a red beard that drapes down its bare chest.

  The beast roars, “Who dares cross my bridge?”

  Its teeth show no signs of dental care, and its breath, Jack thinks, is bad enough to kill small land-dwelling mammals.

  Jack is suddenly aware that someone has grabbed him around the knees. He looks down and sees that it's Mason. Wait a minute…Mason? he questions. Jack would have predicted that Mason would have been the one to act first in this situation by speaking or doing something else. However, he's about as far from fulfilling that role as possible at the moment. The kick to his jaw and the subsequent spell of blackness had apparently triggered something within him. Jack wonders if his trauma surfaced some deep fear that Mason had not considered before or if it's a matter of Mason being confronted with the reality that he could in fact die.

  “Answer me! Who dares cross my bridge!?”

  Scotty says, “Uh…We do?”

  “’We do?’ Who are ‘we’?” the troll rumbles.

  “Uh, sir, we just want to pass, that's all. We're trying to go home,” Scotty utters.

  Mason releases his grip on Jack and stands up.

  Jack stammers, “Uh, sir—Mr. Troll—uh, we would love to stay and chat, but we are very late for an important meeting.”

  “A meeting, you say?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, I have meeting as well. I am tired of eating goat. I think you might have a meeting with my stomach—har har har! Of course, the Queen has told me to let you pass.”

  Jack had forgotten about the Queen and is comforted in being reminded that they do have allies.

  “But she's not my boss,” says the troll. “She thinks she can tell me what to do. Sends her henchman to give me orders—bah! I will do as I please. I am hungry. Goat, goat, goat. That's all I eat. She will not deprive me of a little human flesh here and there.”

  Jack looks at the large club extending from the monster's hand to the bridge floor and calls out, “Mr. Troll, sir, you don't want to eat us. We are scrawny compared to the next group of kids.”

  “Next group?”

  “Yeah, there is another group of travelers.”

  “There are more of you coming?”

  “About eight, that's twice as many as us. And from what I saw, they are much larger.”

  The troll looks at the rather robust size of Scotty and drools. A line of spit drops from his mouth to the bridge.

  “You do not lie?”

  “Uh, no, I mean, yes, I am not lying. Big kids coming this way…. Go check for yourself,” Jack lies.

  He has not pegged the troll as a bright one and watches while it thinks. Then he sees the massive green monster grab Scotty and lift him up and place him on his other side.

  Jack thinks, He'
s bought the story. How ironic: just like the real tale.

  In order to avoid being touched by the troll, Mason scoots to one side of the bridge. There is little room for both the troll and him. Then the troll passes from Mason to Jack, who almost hurls at the wafting scent. The stench reminds him of a combination of road kill, bologna, and his Aunt Helen's sock drawer.

  The troll passes Amy over and they are almost completely off the bridge, when the bridge starts bouncing up and down violently. The troll turns around and sees Scotty bolting to the other side of the bridge. It growls and charges back toward them.

  Chapter 105

  They all see the troll barreling toward them, and they flee to the other side of the bridge. Jack looks to the front of the structure and sees that the ropes of the bridge are tied to a large wooden stake at the end. He thinks that if they could just untie the rope before the troll gets to the other side, then it would fall into the ravine.

  When Jack sees that Scotty and Mason are clear of the bridge, he yells, “Untie the rope!”

  However, Scotty ignores the call and just keeps running toward the door. Mason also ignores Jack's plea and follows Scotty.

  Jack realizes he will have to untie the rope. The boy hastily reaches to the thick rope knotted around the post. He strains to undo it, but it's too tight. Jack looks back and sees that the troll has almost caught up to them. He wonders how such a large beast could move so quickly.

  The troll reaches out, grabs Amy, and turns her around. Then, as if she were a child's play doll, he lifts her with one of his trunk-like arms and holds her over the ravine.

  Amy screams in terror, and this stops Scotty in his tracks. He turns around, and after seeing his sister in a helpless condition, he fumbles in his pants for the scissors while racing to stand beside Jack on the bridge.

  Scotty yanks out the shears and, holding them like a knife, demands, “Put her down!”

  The troll recognizes the false bravado of the pudgy boy with his shaking scissors and simply laughs.

  Then he grunts, “You want me to drop her?”