It was a rare spot nowadays, to see a chair shot right to the skull, but Tractor had been adamant before the match about doing things old-school. To give the guy credit, he had a noggin like a bowling ball.
Tractor sprawled back against the ring apron while AJ raised the chair above his head a second time. He delayed for a moment to work up the crowd then brought it down again.
Tractor threw himself under the ropes and back inside the ring. He made it up onto his knees but then crumpled into a ball. This he did purposefully so that he could ‘blade’ himself. Unlike AJ, who had been opened up the ‘hard way’ earlier by a clumsy punch, Tractor would produce a concealed razor blade from his wrist tapes and use it to slice along the upper edge of his eyebrow, producing a lot of blood from a pretty insubstantial wound. It was a trick of the trade, a century old.
AJ’s own wound had finally stopped bleeding, which was why it caused him to hesitate when his vision once again blurred. He rubbed at his eyes but there was no blood to clear. Two seconds passed and his vision returned to normal, but the brief disorientation had, once again, knocked him off his game.
Jesus, let’s just get this over with.
AJ rolled into the ring, taking the ‘steel’ chair with him. Tractor rose up on his knees, revealing his blood-soaked face to the crowd – a ‘crimson mask’ – and the crowd roared with excitement. AJ lifted the chair again and pushed them over the edge. This time, instead of whacking the chair off the big man’s head, he tossed it so that Tractor caught it. Then he jumped into the air and delivered an A-Kick that connected with the chair and drove it into Tractor’s face.
Crack!
Tractor wobbled on his knees, blood dripping down his naked chest, then, like an uprooted oak tree, he toppled over and hit the canvass.
Timbeeerrr!
AJ made the pin just as Graham woke up and was miraculously able to make the count.
One…
Two…
Three!
The bell rang.
The crowd went wild.
Chapter Three
Two weeks later…
AJ knew he shouldn’t have been doing sixty in a forty, but a mixture of being late and being excited prevented him from lifting his foot off the accelerator. He’d arranged this trip, and at this rate he’d be the last one to arrive – something that filled him with an unreasonable amount of dread. It took him back to his days of heading off to primary school each morning with his mum. Always the last kid walking through the gates, long after the bell had rung.
AJ had arranged to meet the others at the train station in town, which was why he eventually found himself stuck behind a pair of spluttering city buses. He wasn’t usually an impatient driver, but this afternoon he banged his fists against the steering wheel and yelled, “Come on, come on!”
They wouldn’t mind him being late, he knew, but it had taken him the best part of a year to persuade them to come on this weekend, and it had to be the best time ever.
I don’t want to waste a single minute.
After attempting to overtake the two ridiculously slow buses several times and failing, he was forced to wait until he reached the end of the road. He turned right while both buses mercifully turned left. The train station was on the next road.
His friends were waiting for him outside the ticket office, clutching cups of coffee and tea in polystyrene cups. Samantha was the first to recognise his beat-up Land Rover, so it was she who waved a hand first as he pulled up and parked. Samantha was his oldest friend. He hadn’t seen her in months.
AJ hopped out from behind the wheel and slammed the driver-side door. He joined everybody at the ticket office. “Hey, the gang’s all here!”
Samantha gave him a hug right away, and so did his other high school friend, Ashley. Her boyfriend, Greg, gave a manly handshake, while Ben, in his wheelchair, gave a cool nod. Ben’s sister Tasha stood behind him and waved.
“Thought you were going to cancel on us,” said Greg. His vest today was two sizes too small, but he had the body to pull it off. He dressed just like you would expect a personal trainer to dress. Even his shaved head had muscles.
“Sorry, everyone,” said AJ. “I slept badly. Hurt my shoulder in a match a couple of weeks ago and it throbs like hell during the night. The doc wanted to give me painkillers, but it’s a slippery slope in my game.”
Greg folded his thick arms and looked concerned. “I’ll take a look at it for you later, buddy. Sounds like you might have torn something. You should have seen me right after it happened.”
AJ rolled his shoulder, displaying that it wasn’t as bad as all that. “I’ve had plenty worse. Don’t worry about it.”
“So we gonna do this thing?” asked Ben. He was the third of AJ’s school friends, and back in the day, along with Samantha and Ashley, they’d made an inseparable gang of four. “I’m ready to crack open the beers,” he said. “Been on my feet all day.”
AJ winced. “You going to be making wheelchair jokes all weekend?”
“It’s part of my stand-up routine.”
Everyone groaned.
“I’ll go start loading up the booze,” said Tasha. She was younger than the rest of them by several years – a fact made clear by her funky pink-and-black dreads – but she fitted in well enough. “Someone want to lend me a hand?”
“Yeah, I got you, T.” Greg went with her over to the seven-seater Grand Picasso she used as part of her job at the care home. Both sides were covered in fading boldface lettering: Crystal Glades Nursing Home.
“So how you been?” Samantha asked AJ as they waited. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail today, as it usually was, but it seemed shorter than the last time he’d seen her. Back in school, people had sometimes mistaken them as brother and sister, with their matching yellow locks, but now his hair was longer than hers, and she had turned a little more towards brunette. “I haven’t seen you in ages, AJ.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “I’ve been touring up and down the country non-stop. This weekend is the first break I’ve had in ages. I’ve been looking forward to it for months.”
“Me too. How’s your mum?”
“Oh, um, yeah, she’s good. You’ll have to drop by sometime. We’ll have lunch. She misses you.”
“Yeah, that’ll be nice. I’ll check my diary.”
AJ knew her diary would be full. It always was lately. He took his share of the blame for being too busy as well, but the last several times they’d arranged to meet, it had been she who had cancelled.
We used to see each other so often. What happened?
After high school had ended, he and Samantha both went into jobs with the same tile company. AJ had been a part-time wrestler during most of that time, but two years ago he had started making enough money to do it as a full-time gig. Samantha, at the same time, had left the tile company to start her own accountancy business. She’d been busy every day since. He understood that, but he missed how close they had been.
AJ didn’t want to dwell on regret, so he turned to Ashley. She looked stick-thin in her skinny jeans and vest top, and it made her wild red hair seem even more enormous. “How are things with you, Ash? Got many photography gigs on the cards?”
“Loads, thanks. It’s really taken off lately. I’m having to turn people away. Weddings and christenings mostly, although I’ve started doing corporate work too. Not that exciting, but it pays the bills. Greg and I hardly see each other lately because of how busy we both are.”
“That sucks, but I’m glad you’re doing well. You remembered your camera for this weekend, right?”
She patted the leather satchel on her bony hip. “Never go anywhere without it.”
AJ grinned. Ashley intended to take photographs for her portfolio, but she would also be taking pictures of them all having fun. Mementos of a weekend he wanted them to remember.
That I want to remember.
Ben turned his wheelchair. “Heads up. Beer’s here.”
Greg stomp
ed across the car park with two large crates of lager under his thick arms. Tasha walked beside him with three carrier bags full of wine. They were all going to get bladdered this weekend, no doubt about it. AJ had already loaded a couple of crates in the back himself.
“Let’s put it in my car.” AJ headed to his Land Rover and opened the rear door. There wasn’t a lot of space left, with the booze, camping supplies, and pop-up seat he’d raised for one of them to sit in, but they would cram in somehow.
“Crack one open,” said Ben eagerly.
Greg placed the beer crates in the Land Rover and frowned. “What, now? We’re about to get in the car.”
“What’s your point? I ain’t driving. Beer me up.”
“Me too,” said Ashley. “I want to let my hair down.”
Greg frowned at her. “Your hair is always down. It refuses to be restrained.”
Ashley flipped her thick red frizz over her shoulder. “Just a reflection of my free spirit.”
AJ chuckled. What was the harm in starting early? They were there to have fun, after all. “I can have one beer and still drive legally. Let’s make a toast. To friendship.”
“And to bright futures,” Ben added.
Greg dug out beers for everyone, and they drank them in the car park like a bunch of students. AJ didn’t want to toast to the future. He only wanted to enjoy this moment and the ones to follow. His smile was troubled as Ashley took his picture. He hoped the ones she took later would be better.
Chapter Four
“You really need to clean your car,” said Ashley from the small pop-up seat in the Land Rover’s rear. “It’s really gross back here. I found a sock.”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said AJ, taking his eyes from the road for a moment to look back at her. “Things have been a bit hectic lately.”
“You think a sock is bad,” said Tasha. “I sat on a toothbrush.”
AJ grimaced. “Sorry! Life on the road.”
Ben started to sing. “Free love on the free love freeway… Let’s get some tunes on in here.”
Samantha sat in the front passenger seat, fiddling with the radio. “You need to get a car with Bluetooth, you know that? Don’t all cars have it nowadays?”
He side-eyed her. “You were with me when I bought this thing. If you had a problem with it, you should’ve said so at the time.”
“I didn’t have a problem with it then. Four years ago. We both still worked at Alscon when you got this tank, and it was already ancient.”
He chuckled. “Hey, did you hear Alscon went bust? Some dodgy business went down and John did a runner. Disappeared off the face of the earth along with a handful of staff.”
Samantha tutted. “Doesn’t surprise me. That place always was a den of crooks. Part of the reason I left.”
“Yeah, me too. I couldn’t stand working with that Monty a moment longer. I swear the dickhead used to steal my leads.”
“I thought you left because wrestling was your dream,” said Greg from the seat behind him. “You told me you were going to be the next Simon Michaels.”
AJ looked in the rear-view mirror at his friend and groaned. “Shawn Michaels. And I’m still working on it.”
“Better get a move on,” said Ben, wedged between the car seat and the folded up wheelchair crammed against his knees. “The big 3-0 is just around the corner.”
“Hey, I don’t turn thirty for another three months. I have plenty of time to make it.”
“You already have made it,” Samantha told him, patting his knee. “I read an article online saying you were one of the most respected wrestlers in the UK. What was it the writer said… oh yeah, that’s it – he said you were the ‘total package. Deceptively agile, remarkably strong, and delightfully charismatic’.”
AJ felt himself blush. “Yeah, I read that article too. It was from the Ringside Observer. I got the number four spot in their power rankings.”
“You see?” Samantha glared back at the others. “AJ is a wresting legend in the making. We should all be bowing at his feet.”
Greg huffed. “Yeah, if wrestling was a real sport.”
AJ snorted. “Your mother thought I was real enough when I was f—”
“Hey!” said Ben. “Let’s leave mums out of it, okay? No need to go there. I won’t stand for it.”
Everyone laughed. They had known each other long enough to take every insult with a pinch of salt. AJ knew his friends were proud of him, as he was proud of them. They had all grown up a lot during the last few years, and the drunken nights of their mid-twenties were a long time past. Not that they couldn’t be revisited from time to time.
“So what’s the name of this place we’re going to again?” Samantha retightened the band around her ponytail and tucked the few remaining gold strands behind her ears. “Sorry, I forgot.”
AJ spoke loudly, making sure they could all hear. “We’re going to Saxon Hills. One of the UK’s oldest theme parks until its closure in 2009.”
Ashley leant forward over the middle seats. “Why did it close?”
AJ shrugged. “Lot of reasons. Falling ticket sales, ageing rides, competition from Alton Towers and Drayton Manor. What really sealed Saxon Hills’ fate, though, was the deadly accident that occurred in the summer of 2007.”
“Here we go,” said Samantha with a sly grin. “Our tour guide has arrived.”
AJ chuckled and put on a mock authoritative tone. “At the turn of the century, Saxon Hills’ owners invested heavily in the development of a new dark ride called Frenzy. Nothing like it had existed in the United Kingdom at the time, and its completion in 2006 led to a brief resurgence for the park. It was the owner’s last roll of the dice to turn business around, and it seemed to have paid off.”
“But it exploded,” said Ben. “Or did they build it out of asbestos? Don’t tell me, Womble infestation?”
AJ tutted. “No, nothing like that. A lunatic set Frenzy on fire while fourteen people were trapped inside. Because of the narrow walkways, and there being only one fire escape, a mere five of those fourteen people escaped the fire, although one died immediately afterwards. Those trapped inside all burned to death, including Donal McCann, the madman who started the fire. He thought the ride was blasphemous.”
“Blasphemous?” said Ashley.
“Yeah. Donal was a groundsman at the park, and for weeks he had been complaining to his colleagues about the ride being evil. What no one realised was that he had been stockpiling petrol inside the ride, intending to torch the place to the ground. He finally decided to go through with it one day while the ride was full of passengers. The youngest victim was a nine-year-old boy named Billy Scott. He’d been riding with his dad.”
Samantha groaned and covered her mouth. “That’s horrible. I’m glad the park shut down.”
“You have to remember,” said AJ, “that the fire was lit intentionally. It wasn’t the park operator’s fault.”
“No,” said Greg, “but the fact that no one could get out after the fire started was.”
AJ nodded. “Which is what a court found. Saxon Hills’ owners had to pay out millions to the families of the dead and injured. Frenzy was rapidly rebuilt and relaunched, the owners hoping to rescue some of the monumental cost they had already sunk into it, but people were reluctant to ride it after what had happened. The owners filed for bankruptcy and the park changed hands twice in the years that followed. Then, in 2009, Saxon Hills closed forever. Today is the ten-year anniversary of the last day the park accepted guests.”
Ashley started gathering her frizzy red hair into bunches. It was an anxiety behaviour she’d displayed since the day they’d met as kids. “And it’s totally abandoned now?” she said. “I still don’t get why we’re going there.”
AJ smiled. “Derbyshire County Council reacquired the land, but they did nothing with it. Some rides were dismantled and sold off, but great chunks of the park were left sitting there to rust. It’s a theme park graveyard. The perfect place to party.”
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“Place better not be haunted,” said Tasha. “The ghost of Donal McCann could be stalking the place right now, for all we know.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Sis, you gotta stop watching TV so late at night. No such thing as ghosts.”
“Spirits are all around us, whether or not you believe in them. And the spirits of those poor dead people might still be at the park, stuck forever in limbo. First sign of any freaky shit and I’m getting a taxi home. Don’t know why you lot want to do this, anyway. It’s well weird.”
“You could always get your own friends,” said Ben.
“I suppose it could be pretty cool,” said Ashley, blowing an unruly strand of hair out of her face. “We could be the first people to visit this place in years. It’s like we’re explorers.”
“Yeah,” said AJ, “that’s exactly how I feel.”
“Hey,” said Ben. “When white people go exploring, they have a habit of coming back with a bunch of brothers chained up in loincloths. This isn’t an expedition, people, let’s get that straight.”
Ashley giggled nervously. “That doesn’t happen any more though, right? Does it? It doesn’t. No. Ha!”
“All the same,” said Tasha with a smirk, “we’ll be watching you white folk carefully.”
More laughter. There was nothing Ben and Tasha wouldn’t joke about, and that was a good quality in AJ’s opinion. Serious people were the worst. If you couldn’t have fun, the least you could do was fake it.
“How long’s the drive?” Greg asked him.
“I’m about to pull onto the motorway. Journey’ll take about an hour ’n’ a half, I reckon.”
“That’s fine,” said Ben, adjusting his wheelchair to give his knees another inch of room. “Gives us time to chill. Ashley, can you reach those beers in the back?”
“Um, yeah, I think so.”
Dark Ride Page 3