by Z. M. Wilmot
The Playground
The sky was overcast, and the smell of rain hung waiting in the air. A grey pall had settled over the city, leeching all the colour from the world. A solitary figure walked slowly down an empty street, moving silently through the still air, his footsteps making hardly a sound. His hands were stuffed into his large overcoat and a hat was pulled down over his face, as he shivered in a cold breeze that he alone could feel.
The street turned, and the man turned with it, a city park coming into view around the corner, surrounded on all sides by towers of cement, scraping the bottom of the heavens. The man’s glossy black shoes padded across the silent street, and he slipped through a gate in a wrought-iron fence around an oasis of green in a sea of grey. He wandered down a curving cobblestone path, weaving beneath the canopy of leaves. His path led him to the center of the park, by the side of a small pond. The surface of the water was as still as the air above it, and the fish that normally swam just below the surface were nowhere to be seen. On the far shore of the lake lay the walker’s destination: a shining playground of plastic and wood, waiting in silence for someone to approach.
And approach someone did. His footsteps took on a peculiar quality of sound as he moved over the bounds of the playground, and colour seeped again into the world beneath his feet. The sound of tinkling laughter filled his ears, and he smiled as children appeared from the air all around him to play.
A young boy and girl, dressed in their Sunday finest, each took an end of a seesaw and began to teeter and totter. A trio of mischievous rascals climbed a set of green plastic stairs to a curving slide of yellow and red, shrieking and giggling as they slid down its spiraling length, pushing each other and starting a chase as they reached its bottom. A row of monolithic swingsets swayed gently as young boys and girls swung merrily upon them, their happiness and joy exuding from their shining eyes. The walker had no choice but to smile as the festive air of the playground surrounded him.
He stepped forward and took off his hat, holding it over his slowing heart. Several adventurous boys soared past him on a firmly rooted zipline, eagles for a moment. A large gaggle of children began playing tag, and it quickly devolved into a cootie-fest, the girls quickly gaining an advantage over the boys. The wanderer’s feet crunched over the mulched yard as he watched more children race down long metal slides, gleaming brilliantly in the sunlight. Gymnasts swung from monkey bars, while would-be ninjas climbed complex jungle gyms. Their adversaries, fierce pirates, crewed wooden ships suspended above a mulchy sea by chains, while brave young souls did their best to remain balanced upon a narrow beam.
Firemen and firewomen slid down poles, both straight and spiraled, and other children climbed ladders, manned towers, and leapt upon small trampolines. A small group of young boys and girls spun a victim round and round on a swing made from an old tire, whilst others clambered over whole structures made of unwanted materials.
One of the tallest of the play-spires was host to a young girl with golden hair, who laughed and smiled at a freckled boy far below her. She turned and sat down at the top of the silvery slide and began her descent, but some errant wind caused her to lose her place and tumble off the edge of the narrow chute, towards her doom many meters below.
The wanderer gave a short cry and stepped forward as the young girl tumbled silently through the air, hitting the ground with only the dullest of thuds. The walker began to run up to her, but she calmly got to her feet, brushed herself off, and resumed her play with the freckled boy.
The intruder upon the playground slowed his pace and then was still for a moment, the memories washing over him. He had forgotten so much about this place of magic, with its light…
…and its dark. A small child’s merry-go-round, coloured in all the colours of the rainbow and many more besides, remained untouched at the center of the playground. Every child who played gave the merry-go-round wide berth, refusing to even think to come near it. For the most part, they ignored it.
Beneath the still merry-go-round was a dark place of silence. One’s vision into that place was greatly limited, and it was impossible to see even the base of the device. The wanderer slowly approached the carousel, and knew in his heart and mind that he was followed by a child. A young boy who looked much like a young wanderer himself passed through the body of the watcher, sending a shudder down his spine. The child cautiously approached the merry-go-round, getting closer to it than any child had ever before. Only this child, of all the dozens populating the playground, dared to question it, for the structure exuded a palpable aura of menace that even now slowed the steps of both young and old.
The world went grey again and the children all vanished, a light mist beginning to form in the air. The wandering man knelt down before an old merry-go-round, the colour long since faded and the handlebars rusted and tarnished. He drew forth from one voluminous pocket an electric torch and held it firmly in shaking hands, ready to illuminate the darkness before him.
Colour seeped back into the wanderer’s vision, and he saw the small child standing before him, mere steps away from the darkness beneath. The child hesitated a moment, and then pushed upon one of the gleaming bars. The merry-go-round began to move, squeakily at first, but quickly it picked up speed and soon spun in silence.
The child ran then along with the device, laughing and smiling, his fears all forgotten. All the other denizens of the playground had halted their play, staring at the brave young boy in equal parts fear and revulsion. Those nearest to the merry-go-round began to back away, and several deigned to hide behind fences and walls.
The spinning wheel traveled faster and faster, its colours all blurring into a kaleidoscopic mess, and then melting into brown. The child jumped upon the device, his laughter the only sound piercing the silent air. He spun with the merry-go-round, heedless of his surroundings and the stares of his compatriots.
Yet no ill seemed to come to him. The wanderer himself, invisible and yet so near to the carousel, took several steps backwards. In the midnight beneath the merry-go-round, a pair of malevolent eyes began to manifest, glowing a deep and unhealthy red.
As the ride slowed to a halt, the boy leapt off and invited his friends to join him in play. In response the children all shied away, hiding themselves further from the spinning menace. The boy shook his head and moved to turn around and ride again. The wanderer reached out his hands in vain, imploring the child to stop, to rethink his actions before it was too late.
But nothing could be done. A tentacle of green slime snaked out from the darkness, delicately wrapping itself around the leg of the brave child. The boy had only a moment to look down and realize his folly before he was brought to the ground and dragged through the mulch, his laughs and smiles turned to screams and tears. He pounded at the ground and clawed at the dirt, but the tentacle’s strength was insurmountable, and inexorably he was dragged into the darkness beneath the carousel. Not a single farewell sounded as he vanished into the black, his shrieks and implorations cut off as with a knife. Nothing remained of the child in the world of the playground save scuffmarks and memories. A light wind disturbed the air, thoughts were blown out of the airy heads of young boys and girls, and mulch swirled and flew until its surface was smooth once again, the last vestiges of a child gone from the world. The wanderer stood, alone now more than ever, and watched as the eyes malevolent faded from view, the carousel silent and still once more.
And then the man was again kneeling in his world of grey, his greatcoat damp with the fog from the lake. He closed his eyes and uttered a short prayer before flicking on his torch to illumine the lair.
To his relief and great disappointment, beneath the old merry-go-round was not a trace of darkness, either of light or of form. Nothing lived under that old carousel, save spiders and mice and the litter of children.
The man turned off his light and sat heavily upon what remained of a once-lush carpet of mulch. He put his head in his hands and sobbed as the rain started to fall, wis
hing he could have back what once he called his.
He prayed and he begged that he be allowed to return to that land of fancy where he had not a care in the world, but no god would answer or acknowledge his cries. He asked only for a chance to see once more that which he had lost so long, long ago; to see again the carnivals, and the slides and the swings, to climb upon towers and dance with his friends.
He had cried and had whimpered for near on half an hour before something saw fit to answer his pleas. A light tap on the shoulder caused the man to turn around, revealing to him a dripping tentacle of slime. The man exhaled in relief and made his case once again, speaking to the snaking limb from the dark. After a moment’s careful consideration, the tentacle lovingly wrapped itself about the wanderer, and slowly and carefully dragged him beneath the merry-go-round, until not even a shoe could be seen. A glimmer of fang and a flashing of tongues, and the man who had wandered was suddenly gone.
The rain came down more, drenching the city, and a sallow sort of colour began to make itself known. Police tape lined the boundaries of an old playground in the city park, and a trio of officers made their rounds once again, checking beneath every slide, above every tower, and in each and every tunnel that made up the place. The senior inspector had knelt down near a merry-go-round, its gay splendour having long since faded to grey. At the man’s feet lay a corpse, torn and mangled, his face all in tatters and his bones all to dust, his life-blood mingling with the rain from the sky, seeping slowly into the ground. Fang marks raked down the man’s stomach and side, and what organs remained were half-eaten and wretched.
The inspector looked up for a moment, for he thought he heard song, and the laughter of children as they played in oblivion. The sounds soon faded and he was left all alone, and he shook his head and turned his attention back to the job at his hand, failing to notice the carousel’s spinning, slowly and gently in a still breeze.
Parallax