Dark Ride

by Iain Rob Wright

  “Wow,” said Samantha. “You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

  AJ snapped the bolt cutters open and closed like a piranha’s mouth. “I wish I could say this is my first time breaking in somewhere.”

  Samantha giggled. “You reprobate.”

  AJ stooped in front of the fence and positioned the cutters around one of the links. “Three… two… one!”

  Clip.

  The link snipped apart easily, and it was oddly satisfying. AJ got to work cutting out an entrance in the fence, and it was only a few minutes more before he had made a gap big enough to push a trolley through.

  “Those things are great,” said Ben. “I bet they could take a finger right off.”

  Tasha groaned. “Don’t tempt fate.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “You still freaking out on us? Just chill, sis.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, not looking okay at all. “I just want everyone to be careful. Haunted or not, this place is probably dangerous.”

  “She’s right,” said Greg. “We already have one casualty. Let’s watch our step and make sure we don’t do anything stupid. Don’t forget, this entire place has been condemned.”

  AJ packed away his bolt cutters and knelt in front of the opening. “I’ll go first. That way, if anyone gets impaled, it’ll be me.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” said Greg.

  Tasha shook her head in disapproval. “You keep tempting fate, and that’s exactly what’ll happen.”

  “There’s no such thing as fate,” said Ben.

  But as AJ passed through the gap in the fence, he couldn’t help thinking to himself, Oh, yes, there is. And you can’t escape it.

  Chapter Nine

  It was everything AJ had hoped for. While most of the rides had been removed, a few – obviously the ones no other parks had wanted – still stood in place. The structures had ceased being man-made creations and were now ancient, unmovable monoliths. Features of the landscape, like mountains or giant oak trees.

  “This spot!” said AJ, pointing down at a massive slab of discoloured concrete beneath his feet. “This is where the Crown Fall used to be. It was a thirty-foot Vekoma parachute tower. You could see it rising up from the car park like a great big welcome. An amusement company in Wales has it now on a pier.”

  Greg kicked at the ground, dislodging weeds and dirt. A huge steel bolt jutted from the pavement. “How do you know all this stuff? You’re like a kid.”

  AJ felt his cheeks heat up. “I know it’s nerdy, but I just love theme parks. Whenever I wrestle up and down the country, I always check out the local attractions. It makes every long, arduous journey something to look forward to. I must have ridden the Big One at Blackpool twenty times, and there’s this place down in Dartmouth with these fantastic waterslides that I could ride all day long. I love discovering them all. Especially the rides few people know about.”

  Greg scrunched up his nose. “Really? I don’t see the attraction – excuse the pun.”

  “That’s because most people go on rides without giving them any consideration beyond the thirty seconds they’re on them, but so much goes into designing them and building them.” AJ felt himself getting excited, and he tried to keep his voice at a reasonable volume. “And they’re always changing. Rides evolve. Do you know the Lilo & Stitch ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom was originally intended to be based on the Alien franchise? It got changed for being too scary. It’s common knowledge.”

  “It’s not common knowledge,” said Greg. “Not for anyone normal.”

  AJ gave Greg the finger. “There’s more to life than shifting weight, you know?”

  “No, there is literally only shifting weight. Go hard or go home. That’s my entire credo.”

  “Which is funny for a guy who can’t get it up some nights,” said Ashley with a smirk.

  Greg seemed miffed by the jab as everyone hooted in laughter. He shot Ashley a glare but eventually chose to shrug off the insult and laugh along with them. AJ wondered if Ashley had really been joking, or making a complaint. More likely the beers back at the car had just gone to her head.

  Greg and Ashley had been together for over two years, ever since meeting at one of AJ’s wrestling events. After Greg had helped him in the gym, AJ had got him a side gig as a personal trainer for a wrestling promotion – Tractor’s promotion – which was why he often attended the shows. Therefore, AJ took credit for the two of them getting together.

  “What did that used to be?” Tasha pointed to a twisted pillar of melted plastic about three feet high.

  AJ shrugged. “Looks like someone set fire to a bin. Behind it though, that crumbling brick wall used to be a block of toilets.”

  Tasha raised an eyebrow at him. “Fascinating.”

  “It’s nearly dark,” said Samantha, glancing at her watch and then up at the sky. “Almost seven. We need to find a place to camp.”

  “Yeah,” said Ben, rubbing at his arms. “Getting chilly too. Couldn’t we have done this in the summer?”

  AJ nodded. Of course he didn’t expect them to bed down on the concrete. He knew what was here – had been researching the place for years. “When the park closed,” he said, “they sold off most the rides, either intact or stripped for copper and lead, etcetera, but there were a few structures that got left behind, including a restaurant called the Great Hunt. The building was constructed to resemble a Viking longhouse, and it was made mostly from timber, which isn’t worth much recycled. I thought we could camp there.”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Ben. “Always fancied myself as a Viking. I’d be great at rowing the seven seas.” He pinwheeled his arms.

  Greg laughed. “What, because of all the wanking you do?”

  Ben flexed his fists. “I do whatever I have to do to amuse myself.”

  “Okay,” said Ashley. “I’d really like to get off this ankle, so lead the way, AJ.”

  AJ nodded and headed off. It was strange, but he would’ve known his way around better if the maze of rides and facilities still existed. The flat, weed-strewn pavement clashed with his memory of the place as a child, and it left him disorientated. In some places, the grass had grown so long through the pavement that it looked like a meadow.

  A slope rose ahead, gentle but long. They had to go slow for both Ashley and Ben, but when they reached the top, the park grew more impressive.

  The log flume was the tallest remaining structure, its tandem drops and various tunnels snaking together like a complicated knot, and it stood proud on the horizon. Equally impressive was the narrow stream that ran in a perfect line across the top of the slope. A pair of wooden bridges spanned it, sixty metres apart, but the white picket fence running alongside had snapped and broken in places, and its chipped paintwork gave way to greens and greys.

  Ashley limped along. “Are those bridges safe?”

  AJ shrugged. How would he know simply by looking at them? “I’m sure they’re fine, but even if not, that stream’s a foot deep. It’s not like you’ll be swept away.”

  Greg went up to the nearest bridge and prodded at the boards with his trainer. “It’s fine,” he said. “Hurry up.”

  AJ grabbed Ben’s wheelchair and rushed him forward, much to his protest. “Hey, man! Think I’m just going to sit here and let you push me around?”

  “Yeah,” said AJ. “I do.”

  He picked up speed, tipping the chair into a wheelie. Ben’s protests turned to laughter, and when they hit the foot of the bridge, the chair hopped a little and gained a couple of inches of air.

  “Be careful,” Tasha shouted after them. “You break him, you buy him.”

  “I won’t break him,” said AJ as they hit the peak of the bridge. “I’m just having a little bit of— Shit!”

  Tasha cried out and started running. “What is it?”

  AJ cackled. He had pretended to crash Ben’s chair into the hedges, but instead spun him around at the last second. Ben was cursing, but giggling too. Once Tasha realised
it was a joke, she had some choice words to offer.

  “That’s strike one, AJ.”

  “Duly noted.”

  They all made it across the bridge in one piece, and AJ led them towards where he remembered the Great Hunt being. He thought he saw it ahead, but something wasn’t quite right. He expected a long, wooden structure, but they were heading towards a blackened husk.

  “What is that?” Samantha tilted her head, ponytail flopping against her shoulder. “It looks burnt.”

  “It is,” said Greg. “Someone torched whatever this was. This isn’t the restaurant you were talking about, is it?”

  AJ sighed. The closer they got, the surer he became that, yes, this was indeed the remains of what had once been the Great Hunt.

  A collection of fake shields lay in a pile, their steel facades blackened but unmelted. A severed head in a horned helmet lay on its side, staring at them through melted plastic eyes. The stench of charcoal and burning still clung to the air, even with the fire long dead.

  “I think this was it,” said AJ, wishing it wasn’t so. He’d based the whole camping weekend on there being at least one habitable building to sleep in. “It was left standing when the park closed. Someone must have set fire to it since. Bloody vandals.”

  “So we’re not the first to come here exploring,” said Greg. “Guess that means we won’t be planting any flags.”

  Ben rolled over to the building’s scorched remains and studied them with interest. “If this building’s been torched, what are they odds the others have been too?”

  “We can try the log flume entrance,” said AJ, trying to think fast. “It’s an enclosed cabin. Not that big, but it should be secure. Come on, it’s at the back of the park.”

  “Oh, great,” said Ashley. “More walking.”

  Greg put his arm around her waist and let her lean on him. “We need to rest Ash’s ankle or it’ll swell up like a piss-filled condom. What if we get to this log flume and it’s burnt down too?”

  AJ could see Ashley was in pain – he had strapped up enough of his own sprains to know how agonising it could be. They couldn’t keep dragging her around. “Okay,” he said, “there’s one other place we could go, but you won’t like it. Should be right over there…” He pointed to a dense grouping of nearby trees. It had been a landscaped area once, erected to form Pagan’s Grove – a mock clearing in the middle of the woods – but it had now grown wild. A handful of rides had been erected in the grove area, but only one now remained. And it was notorious.

  “Where are you thinking?” asked Ben.

  AJ sighed and came out with it. “Frenzy. It’s a dark ride, so the whole thing is under a roof. If we can get inside, it’ll make the perfect place to camp out for the night.”

  “No way,” said Tasha. “You’re talking about the ride that killed a bunch of people?”

  “A madman with a blowtorch and petrol killed a bunch of people. The ride just made it hard for them to get out.”

  Tasha folded her arms and looked away in disgust. “Oh, that’s so much better.”

  Greg spoke next. “If it burned down, how is it supposed to be a good place to camp out?”

  AJ sighed. “I already told you. After the fire, it was quickly rebuilt and made safe. The owners couldn’t afford to lose the money they had invested into the ride so they reopened it. When the park closed, Frenzy was still fully operational.”

  “Then why didn’t anyone buy it?” asked Samantha.

  “Dark rides are hard to resituate because so much of their theming is tied to the building they are housed in. But the main reason no one wanted to buy Frenzy is because nine people died inside it.”

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” said Ben. “Nobody wants to go on a death ride.”

  “And we’d have to be crazy to camp inside one as well,” said Tasha. “It’s a bad idea.”

  AJ sighed. “Why? Because you actually believe in ghosts and monsters? I mean, come on.”

  Tasha was breathing heavily, and it was unclear whether she was panicking or just annoyed. “You don’t mess around with places like that. That ride has bad memories attached to it, and bad memories can bite your hand off if you don’t pay them enough respect.”

  “I have to admit,” said Ashley, “the thought of staying in a ride where people died is a bit much for me as well.”

  “That’s why it’ll be exciting,” said Greg, looking at Ashley like he enjoyed the thought of her being afraid. Then he looked at AJ. “Right?”

  AJ felt embarrassed and stared down at the ground. “Well, yeah, part of me would like to do it for the experience. People stay in supposedly haunted places all the time, don’t they? I guess it’s something on my bucket list. I never planned on camping inside Frenzy this weekend, but seeing it at least is one of the main reasons I’m here. It’s part of the park’s history. Theme park history.”

  Samantha turned to him. “This is important to you?”

  He thought for a moment and then nodded. “I think so, yeah.”

  “Okay” – she cleared her throat – “then I’m in. I’m probably going to wet my pants, but I’ll try to remind myself that I’m an adult, and that ghosts and goblins don’t exist.”

  “I used to love that game,” said Ben. “If you got hit, you ended up in your underpants.”

  Greg folded his arms and shrugged his massive traps – like the hood of a cobra. “It sounds better than spending the night in a rusty old log flume, so I’m game too. This thing will have doors, I assume? And a roof?”

  AJ nodded. “The whole ride is enclosed. It should be the warmest place in the park.”

  “Then I’m in too,” said Ben. “I don’t enjoy being cold. My people hail from warmer climates.”

  Ashley looked confused. “I thought your family were from Birmingham.”

  “Yes, but believe it or not we are not ethnically Brummie. My grandparents were from Trinidad.”

  Ashley blushed. “Oh. Well, okay then, I’ll do whatever the group decides. I just don’t want to walk any more.”

  Tasha was tapping her foot on the ground, fidgeting like she was covered in ants. “I’m not going inside that ride. No way.”

  “Where else are you going to go then, sis?” Ben wheeled around to face her. “It’s almost dark, and it’s getting cold. You can either stick things out with the rest of us, or go find some place on your own. You’re acting like a kid. We can’t keep making Ashley walk around on her ankle. She’s suffering. I want to relax and have some beers, not roll around a bunch of concrete all night.”

  Tasha glanced at Ashley, who gave her a small, pleading nod. Just say yes, she seemed to be saying. Eventually, Tasha hissed and stamped her foot. “Okay, fine, but promise me we’ll leave at the first sign of… anything.”

  “We promise.” AJ knew he was beaming like a clown, but he couldn’t help himself. This was really happening. They were going to spend the night inside Frenzy. “First sign of a ghost and I’ll be right behind you.”

  “You’ll be right beneath me,” Tasha told him. “I’ll trample your pasty white ass.”

  AJ nodded. “Fair enough. Come on, it’s this way.”

  Chapter Ten

  Ashley was really struggling with her ankle. AJ took Greg’s rucksack so he could give his girlfriend a piggyback. She would be limping for a few days at least.

  “Is it much further?” asked Greg, probably because he disliked having to carry Ashley rather than because he was struggling with her weight. He was one of the strongest people AJ knew – and he knew some pretty gigantic guys – but he wasn’t the most accommodating of boyfriends. No such thing as chivalry in the twenty-first century, he would often say to female wrestlers when they begged him for a break from his backbreaking workout routines. Suzy Shakedown, a green-eared trainee, had once punched him on the nose before quitting the company altogether. She had been no great loss, admittedly, but most people thought Greg had deserved it. Compassion wasn’t his strong suit.

  “I
t’s just inside these trees,” said AJ. “The whole area is meant to be like a pagan settlement. Saxon Hills was themed around the Viking invasion of Britain. Christianity was still spreading at that time, so some people still worshipped the old gods, like Woden.”

  “You’re not a normal wrestler, are you?” said Ben. “I’ve met some of the sweaty dudes you grapple with and most of them still struggle with the alphabet.”

  AJ chuckled. It was nice that Ben, in a backhanded kind of way, was calling him smart, and it was true that AJ enjoyed educating himself, but he had chosen to be a wrestler because he loved it, not because he was witless. “It’s a mixture,” he said. “Some of the guys I’ve worked with have day jobs as accountants and teachers, while others sofa hop their entire lives without ever doing a proper day’s work. The call of the squared circle entices all souls.”

  “Okay,” said Greg impatiently, “so where in Woden’s grove are we heading?”

  “I think we’re already here,” said Samantha. “Guys, look at that!”

  AJ had seen pictures of Frenzy’s entrance on the Internet, but seeing it for real was a different experience. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. The dark ride had opened after his mother’s blindness, which was why he had never ridden it, but now he was finally here, standing before it.

  The giant bronze helmet was a looming presence poking out from between a pair of slanting elm trees. Weeds, moss, and creeping ivy covered its surface, which made it seem menacing and ancient. Both horns were still intact, stabbing at the darkening sky.

  “I am not going in there,” said Tasha. “It looks evil.”

  “It’s supposed to look evil,” said Greg, “but it’s just a bunch of steel and fibreglass.”

  Ashley slid down from Greg’s back and then leant against him. “Sorry, guys, I’m with Tasha. I don’t think I can go in there.”

  AJ tried to put his hand on Ashley’s back, but he couldn’t get past all of her thick red hair. “Greg’s right. It looks scary because it was built to look scary. It’s a thrill ride.”