Dark Ride

by Iain Rob Wright

  “It’s a car park,” said Greg. “Brilliant.”

  “Nah, man,” said Ben. “This is actually pretty cool. How often do you get to go somewhere without other people? You could die here and no one would find your body for years – maybe not ever. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be watching my step.”

  AJ laughed. “Yeah, you don’t want to end up in a wheelchair.”

  “Can we find a parking space?” Ashley asked sarcastically. “Or is it too busy?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Tasha. “My brother’s here, we can park in the disabled.”

  AJ drove across the car park, surrounded by hundreds of spaces on all sides. He didn’t think he’d need to squeeze in anywhere today. Maybe the weekend was still salvageable. “I’ll pull up as close to the park as I can and then—” He lurched in his seat as the steering wheel went stiff in his hands. The Land Rover bucked like it had driven over loose bricks. AJ swore in surprise.

  “What the…?” Greg had tumbled into the footwell, his beer spilling everywhere.

  “We hit something!” said Ashley.

  AJ wasn’t so sure. “No, I think…” He punched the steering wheel. “I think we punctured a tyre.”

  Everyone groaned.

  AJ brought them to a careful halt in one of the spaces – not that he needed to be courteous of other drivers – then switched off the engine. He pulled the handbrake and climbed out of the car to inspect the damage. Greg got out behind him. Both of them were silent.

  Eventually, Greg asked a question. “Is that… Is that what I think it is?”

  AJ nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

  It made no sense, but somehow they had driven right over a long, bony antler. Like the kind you would find on a reindeer, or a large, angry stag.

  Chapter Seven

  AJ and Greg stood staring at the antler for a full minute before the others grew curious enough to get out and investigate for themselves. Samantha came up alongside AJ and fell to stunned silence with him. Tasha helped Ben climb into his chair and then wheeled him around with Ashley. They saw the antler at the same time.

  Tasha freaked out. “I told you we should’ve turned around. This place isn’t right.”

  Greg shook his head and sighed. “What, it’s haunted by a mad deer, is it? It’s just a coincidence.”

  “Hell of a coincidence,” said Ben, pulling on a pair of stylish green-and-black sports gloves. “I think we get the tyre changed and call this weekend a bust. Sorry, AJ, I know this meant a lot to you.”

  AJ opened his mouth to speak, but Tasha spoke over him. “Yes! We should leave. I don’t want to be here.”

  AJ ground his teeth, dumbfounded that they had been cursed by such shit luck. He put his hands on his hips and faced the others. “Come on, guys. Don’t freak out on me, please. It’s just a flat tyre. Nobody’s hurt, are they? The only damage is to my car. Let’s just have fun like we planned.”

  Greg put his hands on his hips, mirroring AJ. “Sorry, mate, but I think I’m going to have to agree. While I don’t for one second think this place is haunted” – he side-eyed Tasha – “I don’t think this weekend was meant to be. It’s gone from bad to worse, and honestly, I always thought the whole thing was a bit stupid anyway. Let’s just get your car roadworthy, and we’ll have a night down the pub back home, yeah?”

  AJ didn’t want to say what he was about to say. He could see how on edge his friends were and he didn’t want to make things worse. There was a very real chance they might try to hurt him once he told them what he was about to. “I don’t have a spare.”

  Greg frowned, then chuckled, then scowled. “What? How? How… How do you not have a spare? Are you serious?”

  “There’s one here,” said Ashley, pointing, “hanging off the back of the car.”

  AJ cleared his throat, a pit forming in his stomach. “That’s not the spare. I’ve actually been driving on the spare. The one on the back is an old tyre some crazy fan slashed about nine months ago after a show.”

  “For crying out loud.” Greg kicked the pavement, sending up a cloud of dust. “Are you an idiot or what? You bring us out in the middle of nowhere without a spare? You’ve had nine months to get one.”

  “I didn’t think about it. Nobody expects to get a flat, do they?”

  Samantha leant back against the car and sighed. “Wow, this is bad.”

  “Has anybody got any signal at all?” Ashley looked from face to face. “We’re going to need to call the AA or something.”

  “Yeah,” said Greg, running a hand over his shaved head, “and explain that we’re parked outside a theme park that’s been closed for a decade.”

  Everyone checked their phones. No one had a signal.

  Tasha paced the car park. “I’m having really bad vibes here, guys. Real bad.”

  Ben reached out and grabbed her wrist, not hard, but gently – a reassuring gesture. “Chill out, sis. We’re fine.”

  “We’re not fine. We shouldn’t be here.”

  “Sis, just calm—”

  Tasha broke free of her brother’s grip and paced away from the group. She pulled out her phone and held it up in front of her face, waving it back and forth as if getting a signal was merely reliant upon finding some hidden air pocket.

  Ashley chased after her. “Hey, don’t rush off. We’ll figure this out, okay, but let’s take a second.”

  “We need to leave,” Tasha shouted back at her in a panic. This place is freaking me out.”

  Ashley hurried to catch up. “Tasha, just wait! There’s no reason to freak ou— argh!” Ashley collapsed to the pavement and grabbed her ankle.

  Tasha was still ranting, but when she heard Ashley cry out in pain, she turned and rushed back to help. AJ hurried too, and they reached her at the same time. AJ undid Ashley’s laces before swelling set in. “What happened?”

  Ashely pointed, teeth clenched in pain. “A bloody – ah, shite, it hurts – a bloody pothole.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Tasha.

  AJ studied the ground nearby and saw a patch of uneven concrete. “You rolled your ankle, Ash. Does it feel broken?”

  “I don’t know! Jeez, it hurts.”

  “Move aside,” said Greg irritably as he came over. He knelt beside Ashley and elevated her ankle. Then he removed her trainer and sock. The elastic had left embedded lines in her pale flesh. “Can you move it?”

  Ashley whimpered, but she managed to rotate her ankle and wiggle her tiny orange-painted toes. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s broken.”

  Greg gave a satisfied grunt. “It’s just a sprain. You’ll be fine. Try to keep your weight off it.”

  AJ sat on the floor next to her. “This is turning into a disaster.”

  Greg rolled his eyes. “No shit.”

  “It’s not AJ’s fault,” said Ashley between hisses of pain. “Bad luck is nobody’s fault. Just help me up and stop being a grumpy arse.”

  Greg huffed, but he helped her up. Tasha took Ashley’s other arm, and the two of them carried her back over to the Land Rover.

  Samantha hopped up on the bonnet and began tapping her boot heels against the top of the tyre. “So what do we do? We can’t drive out of here and we can’t call anyone.”

  “We’ll have to go for help,” said Ben. “I know we’re a bit isolated, but it’s not like we’re in the middle of the desert. We can probably make it back to the road in an hour or two.”

  “There’s a problem with that,” said Greg. He pointed at the punctured tyre and the crushed antler poking out from beneath it. “There’s a rabid stag back the way we came. Anyone fancy a stroll through its territory?”

  “And it’s getting dark,” said Samantha, looking up at the greying sky.

  “I’m not walking back through the woods in the dark,” said Ashley. “I don’t even think I can. My ankle is killing me.”

  “So what then?” asked Ben, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache coming on. “I want to hear a plan here, guys. I’ll b
e honest, I don’t usually let being in a wheelchair hold me back, but I draw the line at wilderness survival. You people have forced me to it, I’m playing my disability card.” He pretended to slap a card down on his knee.

  “We can keep trying our phones,” said Ashley. “I’m sure we’ll get a signal eventually.”

  “Why?” asked Greg. “You think one of the masts will suddenly move closer?”

  “Fuck you. Will you stop being such a miserable bastard?”

  Greg folded his arms, tutted, then turned away to lean against the Land Rover’s boxy rear end – a grown man in a tiny vest sulking. AJ groaned. No one was having fun.

  This mess was all down to him. His passion had led them there, his love of theme parks and their history.

  I should have known they wouldn’t enjoy it. Nobody enjoys this stuff but me. It’s just… a person only has so long to see things. I wanted to see this place.

  I made it so close.

  None of his friends had wanted to come when he’d first suggested the trip – urban exploring, he’d called it to make it sound more legitimate – but he’d chipped away at them until they’d relented. He had dragged them away from their sensible, grown-up lives to go camping at an abandoned slab of concrete in the middle of nowhere. Brilliant.

  Ashley grabbed a beer from the car and started necking it. If there was such a thing as angry drinking, then she was doing it.

  “We can still make the best of this,” AJ said, realising he sounded desperate. “Look, it’s getting too dark to head out for the main road, and with that stag on the loose, it wouldn’t be safe either. We brought beer, camping equipment, and enough snacks to give an elephant diabetes. Let’s just do what we came here to do and have some fun. In the morning, Greg and I will set off to find help. We made it here, didn’t we, so let’s enjoy ourselves.”

  Ben shrugged. “I suppose we could do that. All that’s happened, really, is that we’re a bit stranded, but at least we’re stranded in the place we planned on being, right? Besides, if we try to get help now, it’ll end up being the middle of the night by the time we get home. I’d rather sort things out in the morning.”

  Relief flooded through AJ. He hadn’t expected to find an ally so easily. But then Greg ruined it all. “I never wanted to do this thing anyway,” he said, “and now I’m not in the mood at all. You lot stay here. I’ll head out and bring back a mechanic to fix AJ’s shitheap of a car.”

  Ashley hobbled over to him. “You can’t head out on your own, Greg. It’s not safe. Don’t leave me here.”

  “She’s right,” said Tasha. She’d been standing in silence for a few minutes, but now she was animated again. “We need to stay together. I strongly believe that we need to stay together.”

  Greg looked at them like a bunch of misbehaving children. “You lot are ridiculous. I’ll jog it. We’ll probably be back on the road in two hours.”

  “Please,” said AJ, surprising himself by his own desperate plea, but once it was out there, he went with it. He was prepared to beg. It meant that much to him. “I’m leaving, Greg. Like, for good leaving. And soon.”

  “You’re leaving?” Samantha hopped off the bonnet and stood in front of him. “Going away?”

  AJ spoke directly to her while the others listened. “Yeah, I um… I got offered a developmental deal with the big leagues. I head to America next month. If all goes well, I won’t be coming back.”

  Everyone fell silent, and AJ realised they were working through their disbelief. They knew he was a good wrestler, had each watched him in several matches, but those matches had been in front of tiny crowds at bingo halls and local theatres. They were struggling to equate him with the massive arena spectacles of prime time professional wrestling that had launched household names like The Rock and Hulk Hogan.

  Samantha seemed the most stunned. “Are you… are you serious?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  She shocked him with an outburst. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. That’s incredible! I always knew you’d make it.” She grabbed him in a massive hug and squeezed.

  “Argh, easy. My shoulder, remember?”

  She let go. “Sorry!”

  Ben wheeled himself over to AJ, a big smile on his face. “That’s amazing, man. Good going!”

  “Awesome,” Tasha gave him a high five. “Wish I was going to America. I’m excited for you.”

  “Don’t forget us when you’re famous,” said Ashley.

  Greg was the only one not to congratulate him. In fact, he appeared suspicious. “I was talking to Tractor on Tuesday. He never mentioned anything about you getting a contract.”

  AJ nodded. “Oh, um, yeah, well, I haven’t mentioned it to him yet. We kind of had a falling out.”

  “Yeah, he did tell me about that. Said you decked him in the ring and injured Dillon, who, incidentally, is booked in for two months of physio with me, so thanks for that. Dillon said you totally missed a catch and dropped him.”

  Guilt struck AJ like a slap on the back of the head. Dillon had suffered a major fracture of the ulna bone in his forearm caused by his awkward landing. AJ had taken him out of the game for at least three months, maybe longer. He’d taken away the guy’s ability to earn. What made things even worse was the fact that Dillon had been so forgiving about it all. I know you, AJ. You’re one of the safest hands in the business. You just had a bad night. We’re okay, brother. It’s all good.

  “Dillon and I squared things,” said AJ, “but I feel bad enough without you going on about it. Look, you lot are my best mates. I can’t leave without having one last hurrah with you all. So, please, stay. Let me have this?”

  “Have what?” asked Ben. “What do you want us to do?”

  “Exactly what we all planned to do. We grab our gear and find a way into Saxon Hills. We drink, eat, and talk about the old times until we pass out. There’ll be plenty of time to work out a way home tomorrow, but tonight can still be a laugh. Haven’t you all missed this? Hanging out and doing dumb shit like we used to? When did we get so old?”

  Ben sighed, but nodded. “Have to admit, spending all week in an office isn’t the life I dreamed of.”

  “I’m happy to stay,” said Samantha, putting a hand on AJ’s arm. “We need to celebrate your good news.” She glared at Greg. “We all do.”

  AJ wanted to kiss her then, but he chose to focus on the person who would swing the vote – Greg.

  Greg folded his arms and grunted. “Yeah, well, I don’t see what choice there is. First thing in the morning though, I’m setting off.”

  AJ nodded and offered a handshake. “Thanks, man. I’m sorry, okay?”

  Greg finally let his bad attitude fade and shook AJ’s hand, but he broke away and went over to the Land Rover. He opened the rear door and started handing out beers. “Let’s carb up, kids. Here’s to AJ! The next Stone Cold Steve Armstrong.”

  “Austin,” AJ corrected, but nobody else seemed to care. For a guy that worked in the business, he knew shit-all about the history of wrestling.

  Everyone grabbed a beer and, all of a sudden, everything was fine. They were all having fun again.

  Although AJ found it hard to smile.

  This would likely be the last time he saw them together like this. The last chance at making memories he could hold on to. He was going to miss them.

  He held up his beer. “To me!”

  Chapter Eight

  Greg and AJ bore most of the weight on their shoulders, rucksacks full of beer, wine, and snacks. Everyone else wore smaller backpacks, stuffed with sleeping bags and smaller camping supplies. Ashley had an additional hip bag that housed her camera and lenses, but she refused to give it up despite hobbling along on a sprained ankle.

  They shuffled across the dilapidated car park towards the chain-link fence. An entrance area broke up its centre, but the structure there had long ago been boarded up. A pair of castle turrets rose either side of a rusty row of turnstiles, and a thick wall of plywood had been erecte
d behind. The bottom of the turrets housed small offices with planked-up windows. Ticket offices.

  “I remember being here as a kid,” said AJ. “My mum was a total wimp when it came to rides, but she always brought me here at least once a year until she… well, you know?”

  Everyone nodded and gave thin-lipped smiles. They all knew his mum well, having crashed at his house regularly during their party days. At twenty-nine, AJ’s mother had been diagnosed with Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy. By thirty-two, she had been almost completely blind. AJ had been eleven, and in the space of a few years, he’d gone from being a child to a full-time carer. His mother hadn’t been born blind, which meant she was incapable at first, unable to cook or clean. Unable to read. She relied on him for everything. His mum had ceased to exist, as she became, instead, a burden, a chore. It was some time before she became a person again. A long time before her depression finally lifted. By the time AJ had a mother again, he was a fully grown man no longer in need of one.

  “How is your mum?” asked Ashley. She, in particular, had always got along well with his mother. They shared a love of Motown music and crappy Saturday night singing shows – one of the few kinds of shows his mum could still enjoy after going blind.

  “She’s doing good,” said AJ. “She still works part-time at the private school. Keeps her occupied.”

  “Tell her I said hi.”

  AJ smiled. “Will do.”

  “So how do we get inside?” asked Tasha. She was looking around nervously, as though she expected the crazed stag to suddenly appear and charge them. She had ceased alarming everyone with her ‘bad vibes’, but she was still clearly anxious. “The entrance building is all boarded up. We’d need a bulldozer to get through it.”

  “We’re going to make our own entrance,” said AJ with a wink. He’d already thought about this.

  Greg shifted the weight on his shoulders. “What do you mean?”

  AJ picked up his pace so he reached the chain-link fence first. Once there, he knelt and shrugged off his rucksack. Among the beer cans and wine bottles was a cloth bag full of tools. He pulled out the tool he needed and showed it to the others.