Carnival World Boxed Set (Episodes 1-3)

by Stokes, Tawny

  They made ‘camp’ on the side of the road on the yellowing scrub grass. Using the clothes they’d found, everyone got a makeshift bed and pillow. It wasn’t perfect but it was way better than when they slept on the hard picnic tables in the pavilion at the carnival grounds.

  Summer and Sam settled on the ground together. Maddie and Justin in next to them. Nicole had set up two beds next to each other, one was obviously for him. And Ryan settled off to the side, on his own.

  In the distance Darien saw the orange light of the burning motel. He watched as it flickered and glowed and then slowly faded out.

  There goes the Astro motel, he thought.

  It hadn’t been the Astro Motel, at least not his Astro Motel. The place where he and Nicole had had sex for the very first time. It was still the best night of his life by far. They’d been so into each other, so hurried to be naked and skin to skin. And after they’d finished, they had lain in bed, Nicole sprawled across his chest and watched funny movies. That had been his motel.

  This place that had burned to the ground had been a place two sickos had used to trap and kill people. It still looked like his Astro Motel. Now it was gone. It was just like Ryan had suggested. Alternate realities.

  That made Darien feel unbelievably sad and he couldn’t understand why.

  Ryan made a fire near the makeshift beds. It proved to be a lot easier now to get one going. The Swiss army knife Darien had taken for himself had a bar that made sparks when you hit it with something metal. Ryan said it was a Magnesium fire starter. That was cool because that meant they didn’t have to rely on matches any more.

  Once the fire sparked, and everyone got settled in, the group decided to take watch. Darien chose the first shift. Everyone else slept while he sat up a little ways away, wrapped in a couple of sweaters because it was cold without the sun, and kept an eye on the road and the copse of trees beside them. Ryan had left him his iron bar just in case.

  He didn’t know how long he’d sat there before he saw Summer stir, sit up and then come over to him. She sat down next to him.

  At first she didn’t say anything to him, just sat and looked out at the road. He had to fight down an urge to put his arm around her shoulders and pull her close to him. She looked like she needed a hug.

  “Thank you for saving Sam. I don’t know what I would’ve done if...if...”

  He patted her shoulder. “He’s safe now. Don’t worry. And really it was nothing.”

  It bothered him a bit that she thanked him so vehemently. Ryan had been the one to take care of the Shanks. He’d wanted to busted heads but in the end all he did was scoop up Sam and run out the door.

  “Don’t say that,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t belittle what you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything all that great,” he said, his voice clipped and cold. Whoa! Where did that come from?

  “You did. Sam’s alive because of you. That’s not nothing.” She reached over and grabbed his hand.

  He was so startled by the contact, he flinched, but he didn’t pull his hand away. He looked down at their connected hands and back up to Summer’s face.

  There were things he wanted to say to her, but didn’t know how. He was a coward.

  “Summer...”

  “Hey keep it down you two,” Ryan grumbled from his patch of ground nearby.

  Darien yanked his hand out from hers and mumbled, “Sorry.”

  “Well, I’m up now.” Ryan got to his feet and stretched.

  Without another word, Summer stood, and returned to her bed beside Sam. She stretched out beside him, and put her arm over him. The boy snuggled into her.

  “You may as well go sleep, since you woke me.” Ryan came over and put his hand out for his iron bar.

  Darien slapped it into his hand, then stood. As Darien moved past Ryan, he said, “She should probably be thanking you.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Darien turned on him. “You know you’re a real dick. I’m trying to say something nice.”

  “Whatever, Burton. You can keep your niceties for Summer. I don’t need them.”

  Shaking his head, Darien lay down next to Nicole, and tried to relax. It proved difficult when what he really wanted to do was lie down next to Summer and stroke his fingers through her long blond hair.

  “Why don’t you?” Nicole murmured.

  “Why don’t I what?” He looked at her back and wondered if he’d spoken his last thought out loud.

  “Lie with Summer.” No hate tinged in her voice. She could cut him down hard. She’d done it before with a few simple words. But she sounded tired and weary instead.

  “Nicole-,”

  “Just go.”

  Darien rolled on his back and starred up at a starless black sky. He thought of the days and nights he’d had with Nicole, with his team. He and his crew, even his family had been like rock stars or gods in Crooks. They could do anything, get away with anything.

  Where had all that gone?

  He turned onto his other side, away from Nicole, and looked down the road from where they’d just come. From the Astro Motel. Darien realized his life had burned down to the ground just like the motel. And it tasted like ashes in his mouth.

  Chapter Two

  In the morning, when Nicole woke, she saw Darien sleeping next to her. Her heart skipped a little at that, especially since she’d told him to go. He hadn’t, which meant maybe their relationship wasn’t over. Maybe it could be salvaged even in this desolate wasteland.

  She sat up and stretched out the kinks that had settled into her shoulders and neck from sleeping on such a hard surface. The clothes she’d been laying on helping a little but not enough to really matter. She was afraid she’d never sleep in another soft bed again.

  She looked over as Summer as she did some complicated leg stretches. She knew Summer had been on the track team or something like that. She wanted to hate the girl but she couldn’t muster enough energy to. There was no point.

  This wasn’t Crooks where Nicole ran with the popular crowd. There was no popular crowd anymore. Just the seven of them. This motley crew. This was what life was going to be from now on. And there was no way back.

  Unless Sam was right.

  She watched the boy as he chatted to his sister while she stretched. He said they needed to head to the town of Warren. Supposedly there they’d find a way back home. Or so the mysterious Barker had told him. She really wanted to speak up for him when the others dismissed his idea. She liked the kid and not only because he offered her the only bit of hope and kindness she’d found in this place.

  But then she remembered the prison.

  That was where her “pen pal” Cliff had been serving his sentence. It had been a joke; one of Katie Parsons brilliant ideas. Maybe Katie had gotten a laugh out of it but those last few letters had creeped Nicole out. Cliff, a twenty four year old man in for armed robbery, had written her a poem. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the words, “desire”, “love” and “sex” hadn’t been highlighted in the text. She shivered even now just thinking about it. Maybe Cliff didn’t exist in this reality, but she really didn’t want to take that chance.

  After eating a meager breakfast of crackers and sardines, which she thought were disgusting but she managed to swallow one down anyway without gagging, they packed up and continued down the road toward town. She really hoped they would be able to find other food there. She would just about kill for an apple.

  It wasn’t long before she spied something on the road in the distance. She squinted into the harsh sun and saw a glint of steel.

  “Hey, there’s a truck up ahead I think.”

  Ryan and Darien put their hands up over their eyes and peered up the road.

  “Looks like it could be,” Ryan said.

  “Maybe it’ll have food inside it,” Sam suggested.

  “Let’s hope,” Summer said.

  But Nicole thought hoping wasn’t a wise idea. Not in
this place. Hope would only lead to disappointment. Again and again and again.

  As they got closer, they could see that it was indeed a truck pulled over on the side of the road. Sam cheered the closer they got, because the truck belonged to the supermarket in town. Supermarket meant food.

  Sam ran to the truck, cheering all the way.

  “Be careful, Sam,” Ryan said.

  Sam stopped right at the big back doors. “Why?”

  “We don’t know what could be in there.”

  Justin laughed. “You mean like killer pork chops.”

  Ryan turned and gave him a dirty look. “How about one of those dogs, or worse, chowing down on whatever is inside?”

  “How would they get in genius?” Justin said. “The doors are all shut.

  Nicole thought Justin had a point. All the doors were still shut. In fact, they looked like they hadn’t been opened in years. There were layers of dirt and grime encasing the vehicle in a brown cocoon.

  “Just be careful when you open it.” Ryan readied his iron bar alongside the truck, as Darien prepared to open the back doors.

  Curious, Nicole stepped up closer to the truck. She was anxious to see what was inside. Her stomach grumbled thinking about the possibilities.

  Darien counted to three under his breath, then tore open the back doors.

  Something big and black jumped out at Nicole. Shrieking, she stumbled backwards as a huge spider the size of a guinea pig crawled over her shoe. She kicked at it, but it evaded her foot and scuttled into the grass.

  Sam grabbed onto Summer. “Did you see that?”

  She unfortunately had seen it and she shivered. “Yeah, buddy I did.”

  Ryan came forward and peered into the back of the truck. Almost the whole compartment was laced with thick spider webs. Ryan swept some away with his iron bar.

  “Doesn’t look like there are any more spiders inside.”

  “One spider, no matter how big, did not make all those webs,” Summer said, as she pulled Sam even further away from the back of the truck.

  “Maybe not, but they are all gone now.” Ryan climbed up into the compartment. “Burton you coming or what?”

  Darien climbed inside as well.

  While they both moved to the back of the truck, Summer heard something moving on the pavement. She spied something black and hairy scurry from beneath the truck and into the grass. It had been another spider. Or maybe it had been the same one that had jumped on Nicole. She hoped it was the latter, because the thought of several of those huge spiders surrounding them made her skin crawl.

  “Jackpot,” Ryan said as the two of them returned with two boxes of canned food.

  The boys set down the boxes and together they sorted out the cans. There were more ravioli and spaghetti dinners. There were also soups—beef, chicken and her and Sam’s favorite tomato.

  Maddie and Justin helped her stack the cans in the wagon. They had to stuff the clothes into backpacks. Everyone was going to have to carry something from now on. They were accumulating too much stuff. Not that she was complaining. These were things they needed, but soon they would have to find another way to transport their supplies.

  Once that was done, she spied Darien standing off by himself alongside the road. She approached him and noticed what he stared at.

  There were hundreds of wrecked cars behind a fence. It was similar to the parking lot at the carnival grounds, but this place the cars hadn’t been abandoned but purposely put there.

  “Is this the wrecking yard?”

  Darien nodded.

  The others had joined them by now.

  “What’s a wrecking yard?” Sam asked.

  “It’s a place where they take old cars no one wants anymore,” Summer explained, then she frowned. “But wait, isn’t this place...?”

  “It was on the other side of town away from the fairgrounds,” Ryan answered. “So what the hell is this place?”

  It was then that Summer saw the building at the other end of the lot. And the faded sign looming over it.

  Burton Auto.

  “Darien? Is that...?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s my old man’s car dealership.”

  Darien stared at the building, a mixture of anger and longing swirling around in his gut.

  “Are you all right?” Summer asked “You look kind of pale.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Anything useful in there?” Ryan asked.

  “There may be something left in the break room. There’s a full service garage in back.”

  “Let’s go take a look,” Ryan said to him.

  “We’ll all go,” Summer interjected, “We need to stay together.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Whatever.”

  Together they walked down the embankment to the lot. Justin and Maddie wrangled the wagon over the grass, and they each carried a backpack.

  The second his feet touched the pavement of the lot everything came flooding back to him. Darien still saw the building as it had been. This place was almost as much his home as his house on Pritchard Lane.

  He spent his summers here. After the football season was over and there were no more practices or games to go to, he came here as well. During that time, he’d eat, sleep, and dream about the dealership. Except most of the time it had been nightmares and not dreams.

  He remembered old Paul. He has a salesman who worked for his dad. He had white hair and red wrinkled skin. He was like the grandpa he never had. His dad never seemed that excited about showing Darien the business. It had always seemed like a chore to him, an obligation. But Paul was always willing to show Darien the ropes. He said he was a natural with cars.

  “Something’s odd,” said Summer.

  “I agree,” said Ryan. “This isn’t like the carnival parking lot.”

  “What do you mean?” Darien asked.

  “These vehicles don’t look rusted out.” Ryan ran his hand along the hood of one of the luxury sedans. “They look brand new still.”

  “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Nicole said. “Means there could be someone here.”

  “Not necessarily,” Ryan said. “The Shanks weren’t exactly the welcoming sort and look how that turned out.”

  Darien saw Nicole pale. He knew he should comfort her, but he couldn’t make himself move toward her to touch her. He in fact a bit numb standing on the lot of his dad’s dealership.

  As they approached the main show room, Darien kept expecting his dad to come out the front door shouting at him to do some work. The door never opened though. In fact the doors looked dirty and grimy. Much like the supermarket truck on the road. Unlike the motel, there was no attempt to make this look as if it still functioned. The walls stood, the windows weren’t broken, the floor was carpeted in dust, and there was an old stale smell, but other than that the building looked in decent repair but unoccupied.

  Darien led them through the main show room to the simple windowless room behind the main desk. Papers littered the desk, as if someone had been in the middle of some work before vanishing. But there was at least an unopened bottle of water on the side.

  Ryan swiped it. “Awesome.” He cracked it open and sniffed the liquid. He shrugged then took a swig. He smacked his lips. “Taste all right. Just old.”

  As they passed around the bottle of water, Darien checked the cupboards and found some instant soup and cocoa. He also found a bag of trail mix. He opened it and smelled. Didn’t smell rotten or anything. He plucked out a peanut and popped it into his mouth. A little stale but tasty.

  “Hey, look there’s a map of the town.” Sam pointed to the wall where a map showed the town of Crooks, as well as the other nearby towns of Cedar Falls and Warren.

  Ryan tore it off the wall and marched back into the main showroom where there was more light. As a group, they found some ancient desk chairs and sat around in a circle to study the map.

  Ryan pointed to locations on the paper. “So here we are. The fairgrounds are here. We’ve sti
ll got some walking to do before we reach the center of town.”

  “And then what?” Summer asked.

  “We might be able to find help in town,” Maddie suggested.

  No one looked too hopeful about that statement. It didn’t seem likely. Could the Shanks have operated their motel death trap if help had been just a few miles down the road? Perhaps. But Darien didn’t think it likely and neither did the others judging by their expressions.

  “Hopefully the mall and the supermarket are as well preserved as this place. We should be able to get as much as we can carry,” Ryan said.

  “But we can only carry so much,” said Justin. This time he wasn’t being a jackass toward Ryan as normal. It was an honest point.

  “That means we need to pick our next location carefully.” He pointed to the map. “Warren is the closest city.”

  “That’s where have to go,” Sam spoke up. “The Barker said-,”

  “Sam.” Summer shook her head at him, basically telling him to shut it.

  The boy closed his mouth and pouted.

  “But there’s a problem,” Ryan continued, “The direct route to Warren as you can see here is over the river.”

  “What’s the problem?” Justin asked.

  “What if the bridge is out?”

  The map made it clear. A wide band of blue cut across the map and it wound right between the cities of Crooks and Warren. Darien knew about the river. It was deep and swift. Some boys had tried to prove they were tough by swimming it. Only one of the five bodies was ever recovered over the past few years.

  “If the bridge isn’t safe and if the river is still its usual deadly self we’ve no choice,” Ryan finished.

  “No!” cried Sam. “Not Cedar Falls.”

  “Sam enough.” Summer frowned at him. “We’re tired of hearing it.”

  “Kid even if we wanted to go to Warren, if the bridge is out we have to go through Cedar Falls anyway.” Ryan pointed to the map. “Cedar Falls lays to the west. From there the way south to Warren is open.”