by JL Bryan
“You didn’t tell me to bring a flashlight!” Kevin said.
“What did you expect? Lights inside the park?” Reeves rolled his eyes and led the way along the high, overgrown fence.
Kevin tried to look through the fence, but he couldn’t see anything through the thorns and poison ivy that grew over it.
They bashed their way through thick, weedy growth taller than their heads and brimming with mosquitoes. The earth below their feet grew squishy and wet, the moonlight was cut off by trees and high structures inside the park, and Kevin couldn’t see a thing because Reeves was ahead of him with the only flashlight.
“There could be snakes back here,” Kevin whispered.
“Don’t be a little shiver-shit. Here.” Reeves jabbed his flashlight, and Kevin saw the loose section of fence, partially peeled away from the post. The rusty, loose panel of chain link sat in muddy wet earth.
Reeves swung his flashlight toward the weedy slope below them. Several large PVC pipes jutted from the ground, dribbling water toward a murky creekbed.
“This must be where the water rides used to drain,” Reeves said. “I bet we’re near Pirate Island. Come on.” He pushed up the loose section of fence, lay down on his stomach in the mud, and squirmed underneath.
“I’ll get my jersey all muddy,” Kevin complained.
“Then take it off.” Reeves stood up on the other side of the fence, his chest and stomach smeared with mud and filth. “I think we’re under Crashdown Falls. That’s why it’s so dark.” He shined his light up toward the massive underbelly of the waterfall ride several stories above them, where a hundred tiny holes leaked dribbles of sour water.
Kevin scowled and pushed himself through the fence, getting muddy from head to toe. His mom would be furious.
They walked through the damp wooden pillars and crossbars supporting the leaking ride above. They emerged into the moonlight near the Crashdown Falls passenger car, which could seat fifteen people, designed to look like a jaunty paddle-wheel steamship painted canary yellow and bright pink. The ship lay half-sunk in low, black water, as if it had sprung a leak, and was now almost buried by cattails and tall weeds.
Crashdown Falls was just one attraction in Pirate Island, the water-themed area of the park. They stepped out into the central plaza of Pirate Island, decorated by a model of a pirate ship standing on end, having crashed ashore onto a fake deserted island. The island had a single palm tree that shaded a few benches carved and painted to resemble open treasure chests.
They followed the broken remains of a pedestrian path past the shuttered Gone Fishing and Harpoon Lagoon games and the remains of a sandwich shack shaped like a crab, its shell rotten and collapsed. Its faded color-picture menu remained plastered inside one of the service windows, under a row of dead light bulbs.
“I could go for a shrimp po’ boy right now,” Kevin whispered. “And fries. Lots of fries.”
“Sh!” Reeves said. “Do you hear that?”
Kevin listened. At first, he could hear nothing except the endless blowing of the wind off the ocean. Then he heard it—a single quick note at first, then three in a row.
“Is it music?” Kevin whispered.
“Circus music.” Reeves gestured for him to follow.
Kevin stayed behind him, shivering, as they approached the central midway. It looked like chaos down there, uprooted dead trees, partially collapsed game booths thick with vines, moonlit clowns and lions peering out through the foliage. The entire walkway had shattered into a rough, rocky terrain thick with weeds. The night grew darker there, in the shadows of all the attractions around it.
He heard the music, too. The calliope was soft, nearly inaudible at first, but growing louder as they followed it.
They reached the midway. A soft yellow light glowed from somewhere near the park’s front gate.
They both turned toward it, and it seemed to sharpen and clarify as they looked at it. Every game booth and food stall along the midway was an overgrown wreck except for one silvery, gleaming food joint near the front, adorned with a band of dancing neon hamburgers, milkshakes, stars, and ringed planets. A neon sign at one end offered, in lurid burning red letters, TASTY FRIES. Blue neon letters on the opposite side promised FROSTY DRINKS.
“I smell French fries,” Kevin whispered. The place radiated the smell of hot, crispy potatoes.
“Let’s check it out,” Reeves told him.
The calliope music grew louder as they approached, and Kevin’s heart swelled. Warm, buttery yellow light flowed out from the wide-open central service window of the food stand. On the counter, just waiting to be taken, sat a row of four checkered paper baskets piled high with thick, golden-brown steak fries.
Kevin was in front of the stand before he knew it, somehow avoiding all the thick undergrowth and broken and uprooted chunks of pavement that should have tripped him along the way. Beside the baskets of fries sat a pair of pristine red and yellow plastic bottles for ketchup and mustard, clearly full but with no crust of ugly dried condiments around the tip.
Behind the fries stood a row of tall paper cups, each with a straw at the top poking out of a mound of whipped cream topped with a cherry. That meant milkshakes. It had to.
Kevin stood on his tiptoes to look inside the booth. There was nobody there. The deep fryer and grill weren’t even on, though he could swear he heard the sound of sizzling, gurgling grease. The interior was spotlessly clean, bathed in the soothing yellow glow of its overhead lights.
“Hello? Is anybody here?” Kevin asked.
“Don’t be stupid,” Reeves said in a distant, dreamy voice. He was looking up at the slow-blinking neon stars and planets as if hypnotized. “Nobody’s been here in years.”
“But someone just made this.” Kevin’s mouth was actually watering as he leaned over one big basket of fries, taking in the warm smell. They looked crispy, salty, and delicious.
“You’re not talking about eating those, are you?” Reeves looked at the food. “That has to be like five years old. Gross.”
“It’s not five years old.” Kevin picked up the basket, held it to his nose, and took a deep breath of the greasy fried-potato fragrance. “I’ll just try one.”
“Yeah, do that.” Reeves licked his lips as he stared at the fries. “You go first.”
Kevin selected one beautiful specimen—though they were all beautiful specimens, really—a particularly long, thin number dressed in sprinkles of salt and pepper. He bit into it, and it was just as he’d imagined. Crispy, golden crust. Glorious white mush on the inside.
“They’re good,” Kevin said. “They’re so good.”
That was all Reeves needed. He grabbed out a handful of fries, and they feasted, their hands and faces turning warm and wet with grease. They scarfed down the first basket before they remembered the ketchup, but Kevin added a puddle of it to the second basket. He reached for one of the tall cups to wash down some of the greasy taste.
“Is that safe to drink?” Reeves asked.
“Cup’s still cold.” Kevin took a quick sip to test it, and his eyes widened. “It’s root beer. And chocolate. I think it’s a root beer float.” He took another deep drink, just to make sure.
“Give me that.” Reeves snatched the ice cream drink away, but Kevin was happy to grab a new one off the counter.
“This one’s strawberry,” he said. “Strawberry ice cream and Coke.”
“Look at that.” Reeves waved his arm out at the midway, now lit by a glowing jungle of brightly colored flashing lights and neon tubes. Under the moonlight, everything had looked like a hopeless wreck. Now, under the park’s own carnival lighting, the midway didn’t look so bad at all. The pavement was still cracked and worn, but not treacherous and overgrown as Kevin had first thought.
The Lucky Darts balloon game looked open for business, with three rows of inflated balloons fluttering on its wall, stuffed animals and other prizes hanging from the rafters, a row of jumbo darts set out on green felt at the front
of the booth. The plastic Whack-A-Frogs bounced merrily in and out of their holes, heedless of the oversized mallets roped just above them. A glowing shop window offered t-shirts with glittering stars and the Starland Amusement Park Logo, plus dark red shirts depicting the devil face of Inferno Mountain.
“Maybe they’re fixing it up,” Kevin said. “Maybe they’ll open the park again.”
Reeves surveyed the midway, then smirked. “Nah. Probably just some rich guy doing it all for himself. Let’s go check it out.”
They walked along the midway, nearly blinded by all the flashing, flickering lights offering games and thrills. Music played everywhere, but they saw no people at all. The booths seemed to have come alive by themselves.
Kevin focused on a place farther down the midway, shaped like a little German or Dutch village house, its open windows displaying shelves of fried pies, iced pastries, and rows of cookies—peanut butter, chocolate chip, sugar, he could smell them all.
When he got there, he wanted to stop and stuff his face, but Reeves walked right on past the shop and down the midway.
“Wait!” Kevin whined, grabbing a frosted pastry.
“We ate enough already. Let’s go see if any rides are open.”
Kevin took the pastry with him. The sweet crust was dusted with sugar over a layer of chocolate frosting, and the filling inside was rich buttercream. He longed to go back and try more, but he made himself follow Reeves instead.
Beyond the midway, the park appeared to be all ruins, the rides thick with vines and weeds. A distant snarl sounded in the overgrown jungle.
“That’s a mountain lion,” Kevin whispered. “My Gam-gam sees them all the time.”
“Your Gam-gam lives in North Carolina, Beefball,” Reeves told him. The snarl sounded again, and Reeves walked right toward it.
One feeble light burned beyond the midway, a spotlight on a green dome decorated with plastic tropical trees. The waiting area for that ride was a back-and-forth series of wooden boardwalks with rope handrails, which led up to a canal overgrown with cattails, presided over by an elevated Tiki hut. The green dome housed a boat ride, and the entrance and exit were fake caves, each with a gate of closed bamboo double doors.
Plastic statues surrounded the waiting area—an alligator, a tiger, a giraffe, and mannequins of a man in a ragged jaguar-print loincloth and a woman in a matching bikini. The man held a spear, while a snake coiled around the woman’s body and down her arm.
“Check out the balloons on her,” Reeves said. He hopped over the rope railing and into the weedy area with the plastic statues, and Kevin followed. Reeves felt up the girl mannequin, pawing at her jaguar-fur bikini top with both hands, and snickered to himself.
Kevin touched the plastic abdominal muscles on the male mannequin, feeling a little jealous of his cut muscles. He patted the front of the loincloth, wondering whether the guy had a big plastic wiener in there, but it felt flat and smooth rather than anatomically correct.
“You freaking perv,” Reeves said. “This tiger looks so fake.”
Reeves kicked the plastic tiger in its snarling face.
Green, swampy light appeared along the front of the dome.
“What’s that?” Reeves whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Go look, Beefball.”
Shaking, Kevin walked up the end of the roped boardwalks and gaped into the canal. The water glowed green, illuminating the high cattails and the thick slime and pondweed that grew out of it. The recorded tiger-snarl played somewhere beyond the closed bamboo gate.
“What the hell?” Reeves whispered right behind him, making him jump.
“Maybe it has underwater lights, like a swimming pool,” Kevin whispered.
“Yeah...that’s probably it. Let’s go, this place smells like rotten fish.” Reeves snickered. “Hey, you know what else smells like rotten fish, Beefball? Your mom’s pants.”
More lights came on around them. Red bulbs glowed in fake torches built into the entrance and exit caves, and more fake torches lit up overhead. Red spotlights illuminated a huge wooden sign at the top of the dome, carved and painted with the words JUNGLE LAND.
Slow, rhythmic beats sounded deep inside the dome, like half a dozen people striking tight-skinned drums.
Across the canal from Kevin, among the dome’s fake tropical trees and stuffed parrots, more red torch bulbs flared to life around a straw hut painted with Tiki figures. Kevin guessed the hut probably housed the ride controls. An angry-looking Tiki face was painted on the hut’s front door. Wooden steps with rope handrails led down to a slimy, greenish patch of concrete walkway along the opposite side of the canal from which Kevin stood.
“Someone knows we’re here,” Kevin whispered. “We should go.”
“Maybe they’ll let us go on the ride,” Reeves said, staring at the closed Tiki hut door.
“Are you crazy? Why would they let us do that?”
The door to the hut swung open with a creak that startled both of them. The inside of the hut was dark, but Kevin thought he could just barely see the outline of a man in a hat.
“I see you’ve invited yourselves onto my property.” The man spoke in a low, flat voice.
Kevin and Reeves looked at each other. Kevin thought of the French fries and milkshakes they’d stolen, and he wondered if the guy had been watching them the whole time.
The smart thing to do was run, but Kevin felt rooted to the spot, along with a sudden fierce need to pee.
The man emerged from the control shack and stood on the little porch, looking down the short staircase at them. He wore an old-fashioned wide-brimmed white hat, candy-striped, and a white suit with red pinstripes. The suit’s red bow tie matched the folded silk handkerchief in his breast pocket. He didn’t look like someone who’d been working on the slimy, overgrown Jungle Land ride.
He had close-cropped sandy hair and might have been in his thirties or forties—it was hard for Kevin to judge his age. He regarded them with eyes that were a hollow, almost colorless shade of gray.
Reeves and Kevin gaped at him, waiting for him to speak. Kevin wondered what kind of trouble they were in now, whether this guy was going to let them go or if he would be a dick and call the cops. Kevin imagined how super-pissed his mom would be if he got arrested.
“I’m afraid you’ve caught us at a bit of an embarrassing time,” the man said. “We are still in the midst of our renovations. We haven’t opened for the season.”
“Oh,” Kevin said, nodding. “Are you the new owner? Sir?” He thought the “sir” might help keep them out of trouble.
“I am indeed.” The man nodded slightly. He looked at them coldly, but he did not seem particularly angry. Bored, almost.
“Are you re-opening the park?” Reeves asked.
“Not to the general public, though wouldn’t that be grand?” He peered closely at Kevin. “Only to a select few. Only those who are worthy. Are you worthy?”
Kevin shrugged. “Probably not.”
The man smiled just a little.
“How were your concessions?” He looked at Kevin a bit longer, then at Reeves. “The French fries? The milkshakes?” He looked back at Kevin. “The pastry?”
“Uh...” Reeves said.
“We would have paid for them,” Kevin squeaked. “If anyone was there. And...if we had any money....Right, Reeves?” Kevin nodded rapidly, as though in a hurry to agree with himself. Reeves didn’t say anything, just stared at the guy.
“We restored the food stands first,” the man said. “Because you must offer your guests refreshments first, followed by entertainment. That is the proper etiquette. Gifts from the guests are given upon arrival, at the beginning of the evening, while gifts from the host are provided at the end, just before departure. Am I understood?” The man’s flat gray eyes stared at Reeves.
“Uh, yes?” Reeves said, shuffling uneasily on his feet and looking away, like he was thinking about running. If he ran, Kevin would never be able to keep up w
ith him.
“Good. But you’ve already helped yourself to gifts, haven’t you? From the shrine?” The man’s gaze shifted to Kevin, and his cold eyes now seemed a dark gunmetal color.
Kevin felt the horror and guilt of that sacrilege rising in him, the shame of sin, something he’d learned about during the handful of times his mom had dragged him to church.
“We didn’t mean to,” Kevin whispered. “Are you mad at us?”
“Of course not. In fact, it has brought us to this unique opportunity.” The man reached into the shack and pulled on something. “As I’ve said, the rides are not yet fully restored...but Jungle Land is up and running, if you don’t mind the actual swamp grass and live frogs. I think those add something to the experience, don’t you? I suppose you can tell us about it after your ride.”
The double doors at the ride exit may have looked like bamboo fencing, but they creaked with rust as they swung open. A plastic boat, decorated like a bark canoe on the outside, rolled out of the open gate, trundling through the heavily overgrown canal. It braked with a squeal in front of the roped platform where Kevin and Reeves stood. The boat had two plastic benches for seating, one behind the other, each with belt buckles for three people. Though the ride’s waterway was badly overgrown, the boat looked freshly restored with a new coat of paint.
“What do you say, gentlemen? Will you help with a little market research?” the man asked.
“Does that mean we get to go on the ride?” Kevin asked.
“Provided you keep your hands and feet inside the boat at all times,” the man said. “Climb aboard, and do remember to wear your seatbelts.”
Reeves and Kevin shared an excited look—there was no doubt, they were definitely taking the free ride.
They scrambled into the boat, buckled their seatbelts, and stared at the bamboo doors set into the cave entrance ahead. A safety bar dropped over their laps and locked into place.
