Carousel

by Brendan Ritchie

  It sounded stupid but my main fear in telling the Finns was that it might disrupt the album. Something important was happening in that trashy rug store. I could sense it. But more importantly, in spite of their cool, experienced demeanours, I think Taylor and Lizzy could too.

  None of us were any closer to knowing why we were here. In a way the horror of Rocky’s death seemed to confirm that it was all random. There could be no rationalising the slow death of a teenager from legionnaires in a modern shopping complex. But on the other hand it was terrible to think of him, and us, as simple victims of circumstance. Surely something that could result in this kind of tragedy must have a weight in the universe.

  Taylor and Lizzy’s album couldn’t justify Rocky’s death, or our imprisonment, or whatever the hell it was that was going on outside of Carousel. But unlike anything else we had done since our arrival, it felt like a part of this new world. It was born out of circumstances that didn’t exist prior, and maybe would never exist again. And the music sounded different. Like it already resonated even though it was still fractured and incomplete. Like it couldn’t have emerged out of any other place and circumstance but this one. Not a concept album, but somehow a concept of its own.

  It had also been a saviour. In the most clichéd way that music saves a tortured artist from drugs, it had saved the Finns, and maybe me also, from a grief that may have overwhelmed us. We weren’t really cut out to deal with Rocky in life, and by no means in death. Those first few days after we took him to view his last storm were like nothing I had experienced before. Living felt dangerously arbitrary and it seemed like nothing Carousel could offer would ever make things okay. In a normal world you would take on more shifts at a job. Or build a temporary obsession with something on TV. Or have sex with somebody you met at a gig and treated you like everything was normal, because you didn’t tell them it wasn’t. And eventually the sadness would fade into numbness, out of which other emotions could emerge. But not in Carousel. It seemed entirely possible that here we would be forced to live out the rest of our days in sadness.

  But the Finns had found their music. And that had kickstarted my work on the short stories. And it seemed like their purpose would be enough for the three of us.

  So long as it was protected.

  There may have been deeper psychological reasons for not pulling Taylor and Lizzy into my dilemma once again. Taylor might have tied my innate secrecy to a weird fear of actually leaving Carousel. I had felt this before, quite powerfully, and in a lot of ways I still felt scared. But I think it was a different fear now. And maybe not as irrational. I could trace some of it back to logic. This gave me some comfort, and it made my decision to go back to the staff car park alone seem slightly less insane.

  The Carousel ghost train was in motion again. This time I wasn’t going to ride it around for days, jumping at every turn. I was getting off and turning the lights on to find out what the hell was going on.

  I stayed up late on the couch with the Fiesta keys stuffed deep in my pocket. Lizzy drifted off to her corner of the room early with a book and half a glass of wine. Taylor remained with me until twelve. We watched Drugstore Cowboy and the start of Teen Wolf before she sat up and stretched, then shuffled off to bed. I stayed on the couch for the rest of the movie to ensure the Finns were asleep.

  The keys felt heavy and foreign. They had an ominous feel that freaked me out.

  I had packed a small bag earlier in the day with a torch and some other stuff and hid it mutinously under my bed. With this and the keys, I would venture out into the dark of the centre and seek to uncover another of Carousel’s secrets.

  I also had my radio. If Taylor and Lizzy caught me out, I would tell them the truth. If they didn’t, I would keep silent until they finished their album.

  I switched off the TV as the credits rolled and brushed my teeth at the makeshift kitchen bench like any other night. JB’s was quiet. Just the soft, comforting buzz of electrical equipment and air wafting through the exposed ducts at the ceiling. I padded over to my bed and pulled on a jumper. As I knelt to reach under the bed for the backpack I heard shuffling footsteps behind me. I shot up and took a hold of the quilt, pretending to fix the bed as the footsteps approached.

  Lizzy emerged out of the dark.

  ‘Almost forgot,’ she said and handed me an envelope.

  It was Monday. I had forgotten.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I would have been pretty shattered.’

  Lizzy sat down on the bed and wrapped herself in one of the quilts. I glanced at her and opened the envelope. There was a pair of golden retriever puppies on the front. Inside it read Together Forever – Happy Anniversary. Lizzy had signed her name in a crazy exaggerated fashion beneath.

  ‘Nice one,’ I said and placed it on a nearby shelf next to dozens of others. Lizzy shrugged and remained on the bed. It didn’t seem like she was going anywhere. I sat beside her and covered myself in a separate quilt.

  ‘How was Teen Wolf?’ asked Lizzy.

  ‘Pretty awesome,’ I replied.

  ‘What are we going to watch when we’re done with the eighties?’ she asked.

  ‘The nineties,’ I said with a decent amount of sarcasm.

  ‘Oh, right,’ replied Lizzy with even more. ‘It was kind of a rhetorical question.’

  I smiled a little and tried to relax. Peter’s keys felt giant in my pocket.

  ‘I guess we were always going to run out of movies eventually,’ said Lizzy.

  I nodded and thought it over. We were silent for a few moments.

  ‘You know how iTunes tells you how many days of music you have in your library, and it’s always something crazy like two weeks?’ I asked.

  ‘More like six,’ said Lizzy.

  ‘Okay, sure. Six,’ I said. ‘But you can’t ever imagine yourself just sitting there for six weeks and listening to every single song, one after the other, until they’re done, right.’

  Lizzy looked at me but didn’t answer.

  ‘But they still give you that figure. As if to say that, if the world ends, but you survive, you can listen to music for six weeks without repeating a song. And then never again,’ I said.

  Lizzy looked at me curiously.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘I swear you weren’t this weird when we first met,’ she said.

  ‘You’re surprised that being trapped in a shopping complex during the end of the world has made me weird?’

  Lizzy laughed quietly. I joined her.

  ‘Do you think it’s the writing?’ she asked after a few moments.

  ‘What?’ I replied.

  ‘That’s changed you most,’ she asked.

  ‘Oh. I don’t know. I don’t really feel like I’m writing most of the time,’ I replied.

  ‘You’re up there most days,’ she said.

  ‘I mean, when I’m writing up there, it doesn’t really feel like I’m writing,’ I said.

  Lizzy looked confused.

  ‘What does it feel like?’ she asked.

  ‘Messing around. Filling pages,’ I said.

  Lizzy nodded.

  ‘But sometimes it does?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I replied.

  ‘And what does that feel like?’ she asked.

  ‘Different. Like I’m somebody else,’ I said.

  Lizzy thought this over. She didn’t look satisfied.

  ‘Remember when you asked me about that kid on the bus? Why he doesn’t get off when he realises he’s on the wrong one? Whether he chooses to have an adventure?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yeah,’ she replied.

  ‘I don’t know the answer,’ I said.

  Lizzy looked at me.

  ‘Maybe I did when I was writing it. When I felt like somebody else,’ I said. ‘But not now.’

  Lizzy shuffled about under the quilt, a little agitated.

  ‘You’ve read Salinger, yeah?’ she asked. ‘Murakami? Cormac McCarthy?’

  I nodded. She paused for a
moment.

  ‘It’s not really about the answers,’ she said.

  Lizzy looked at me to see if I got it. I nodded without a great deal of certainty.

  Eventually she rose, returned the quilt to the bed and ruffled my hair until I flashed a tiny smile.

  ‘That wasn’t really my question, anyway,’ she said.

  ‘What was your question?’ I asked.

  ‘Who it is on the bus?’ she said.

  I looked at her, not following.

  ‘You or Rocky?’ she asked.

  Lizzy smiled goodnight and padded back to her corner. The words hung in the night like an ocean.

  I sat there beneath the blanket. Keys and backpack all but forgotten.

  An hour later I trudged out into the sleeping centre and headed for the car park. My conversation with Lizzy had swirled in my head for the whole of this time before I shut it away and let fear take over. It rose rapidly into my throat and sent tiny spikes of adrenaline along my skin as I traversed the silent corridors.

  The path to Just Jeans was decently lit by a series of clothing stores on all-night timers. Pockets of blackness were fleeting and I didn’t need to take my torch out of the backpack until I reached the corridor. I switched it on and propped it to point at the door while I knocked it open. Doing this on my own, without making a giant fucking noise, was more difficult than I had predicted. I used a balled-up t-shirt to cover the end of the crowbar and stop it from banging too sharply. It worked in deadening the sound but I couldn’t wedge the door open without the sharp edge. Eventually I took it off and held my breath as a dull clink echoed through the centre and the door swung open.

  I took a small dumbbell out of the backpack and placed it on the doorstep. It had been a pain to carry but the H shape slotted over the step just as I had hoped and now there were ten kilos between me and the terrifying thought of a closed door. I pulled on the backpack, took out the car keys and stepped carefully down under the tiny light of my torch.

  Immediately I felt at risk.

  It was jet black in the car park at night. No comforting daytime glow from downstairs. Just blackness and space. Space was at the root of most of my fears in Carousel. There was so much of it and my senses craved the confinement of the small bedrooms I’d spent my life in. The car park seemed to spread out forever. My torch struggling to catch the closest walls as I edged slowly toward the ramp and eventually felt the decline.

  I shuffled cautiously down the ramp to the ground floor. I had worn canvas shoes to stay silent in the corridors but suddenly wished for something heavier and with more grip. The concrete felt dangerous beneath me. Months of dust gave it a shifting quality that threatened to kick my feet out in front of me and lay me on my back. In the darkness and the space a simple fall seemed like it would be the end of things.

  I glanced over my shoulder to check the door remained propped. It was already lost from view. Just the hint of a glow emanated.

  The floor levelled beneath me and I stopped. Arcade Fire’s ‘Black Mirror’ pulsed through my head on some weird subconscious repeat. I turned and scanned the expanse of the car park for the Fiesta.

  It glinted back a dull, ominous greeting.

  I carefully looked over the rest of the space. It was empty but for the roller door and some wispy, floating cobwebs.

  When I was right alongside the car I lit up the keys and found the central lock button. I held them out in front of me and pressed. The brake lights pulsed, sending a flash of disco-red around the car park as the locks came up with a thud.

  Peter’s car was open.

  I stood motionless. I had expected this to happen but now I wasn’t sure what to do.

  I had to get inside. It looked empty and maybe there was nothing to find, but there was no point coming down here if I didn’t check it out.

  I opened the driver’s door. A light came on inside.

  The seats were grey fabric and clean, not like a new car, but one that was looked after. There were no personal items except for the sun reflector in the back. It smelt normal. The pine freshener hung from the dash omitting a stale waft of synthetic foliage. I slid my backpack from my shoulders and sat behind the wheel. It felt strange. Like I was already out of the centre.

  My hands found the ignition and out of old habit I put in the key and turned. There was a brief flicker of lights on the dash, but no sound from the engine. Not enough charge in the battery, I thought. It was a manual though, so it could be push-started.

  I reached over and dropped open the glove box. There was a manual for the car, a half-empty pack of AA batteries and a Coldplay album. I closed it and scanned the space around me for anything else. There was nothing to see. Just a clean, newish Fiesta that was low on charge.

  I sat back and tried to get a handle on the situation. I wanted to get the hell out of there but not before I knew as much as I could. I realised I hadn’t checked the hatch.

  I stepped out of the car and around to the back, trying hard not to freak out totally. I’d seen enough gangster movies to know that the boot of a car generally didn’t hold any good surprises. Did the same apply to sporty hatches?

  The lock clicked and the door eased itself upward. The space inside was clean. The only items were a couple of newsprint drawing pads stacked neatly on the left side. I flicked through one of them. It was full of charcoal drawings. Solemn looking abstracts of a cityscape I didn’t recognise. I exhaled and gently eased the door shut. The sound still jumped around the car park like crazy.

  That was it. The keys worked and the car was empty. It was big news really, but something about it felt a little deflating.

  I returned to the driver’s side and knelt down to put on my backpack. I noticed something on the sun visor. A small elastic belt was wrapped around the rectangular circumference. I reached up and flicked down the visor. The belt held a remote in place. The type used to control an electronic fence as you entered your front yard.

  Absently I pressed the button. Something shifted behind me.

  I jumped out of the car and spun around. There was a grinding noise in the darkness. Incredibly loud and close by. I scrambled for the torch in my pocket. Suddenly I didn’t need it.

  A beam of cold blue light started spreading across the room. It was coming from the roller door. The moving roller door.

  I looked at it hard. It was moonlight.

  Panic ripped through my senses. I almost ran, but stopped myself and scrambled back into the car.

  I pressed the remote again. Nothing happened.

  I pressed it again.

  There was a moment of silence, then a different noise.

  I looked up to see the moonlight diminishing. I pulled the keys out of the car, shut the driver’s door and ran.

  I was heading straight for the rapidly closing roller door like in some Indiana Jones movie. I closed in and caught a waft of something outside that I couldn’t place. But that wasn’t my destination. I turned hard right at the base of the ramp and bolted upward. A slither of light greeted me at the top. I bounded in its direction and pulled hard on the door back to Carousel. It swung open freely. I climbed back inside and shoved the dumbbell out of the way. The door closed with a thud.

  23

  Seven of the eleven songs Taylor and Lizzy were working on were ready for mastering. Of the four remaining, two were pretty much finished but for some Pro Tools texturing that Lizzy was working on. ‘Little Low’ needed a rerecord of a guitar track that Taylor had been tinkering with. Last I heard she was now satisfied and ready to get it down. The final track was a loud, punchy song called ‘Posthumous’. Until recently I thought this was finished, but had since found out it had been effectively scrapped and the Finns were at a standstill over its direction and inclusion in the album.

  For three weeks I had hovered around anxiously while the album moved achingly toward its conclusion. I eagerly gave over my days recording, archiving, locating files for Lizzy, doing whatever I could to see them finish. All the time
wrapping my emotions deep beneath a façade of casual detachment while an epic battle of conscience raged inside. Without knowing it, Taylor and Lizzy controlled my destiny as much as I controlled theirs.

  With my mornings swallowed, I wrote at night. Fuelled by caffeine and anxiety I reworked old stories and created new ones. It felt mechanical and soulless but somehow the sentences leapt at me when I read them back and the collection grew large and full before my eyes. My art ran parallel to Taylor and Lizzy’s and felt important as a result. Like their album, just the final step remained.

  Late into the night, with my eyes set back in deepening caves within my head, I would trudge out of Myer and secretly pack supplies for our escape. Behind the counter at Army Depot was a series of plastic containers with a careful inventory of items that I would load into the back of Peter’s Fiesta as soon as their album was complete. Canned food, water, tents, blankets, gas masks, jerry cans; a stockpile of props from any post-apocalyptic film. All based on rules that I assumed still existed. On a world I assumed still existed.

  I would take the full brunt of Taylor and Lizzy’s rage upon revealing my secret exit. It would be savage and biting and totally justified. I would listen to it all, then race them to where the containers would be waiting in trolleys with just one thing remaining. A trip to the east exit and a farewell to Rocky. We would take our time out there, my planning would allow for this. It would break our hearts but we would leave him there alone and drive out of the centre. The three of us with our lives and our art. Off to somewhere uncertain but where Taylor and Lizzy would eventually understand, and maybe forgive.

  I had wiped the mystery of Peter from my mind. Escape beckoned us now. Real and tangible escape. I had smelt it as the roller door closed down on my way out of the car park. A smell different to the roof, different to the centre, different to the past. The acrid smell of the future. I didn’t know why Peter had died. Why he hadn’t been able or willing to get back to his car and leave the centre. Why his body was in that storeroom instead of somewhere more logical. Peter was set deep within the fabric of Carousel where I no longer had the time to delve.