by Rachel Caine
DARK RIDES
by Rachel Caine
There’s something deeply creepy about an unlit Ferris wheel in the dark. It looks like the skeletal remains of something large that once rolled across the earth scooping up screaming victims in its buckety jaws. Or at least, it looked like that to me, but I naturally have a pretty macabre imagination. “Wow,” I said, looking up at the outlines of the black girders against the fading dark blue of the sky. “You take me to the nicest places. I am so lucky to have a guy like you.”
“Eve! Shhhh,” whispered Michael, my significant sweetie, as we crouched down between a blown pile of trash and the iron-shuttered side of some kind of cheesy win-a-toxic-stuffed-animal booth. This one specialized in rabbits. They all looked manic and a little diseased. I couldn’t help but fill in the old-time Elmer Fudd voice in my head. We’re hunting wabbits. It made me giggle a little breathlessly, with a nice knife-edge of terror, because we were in a closed amusement park, looking for a vampire, and hey, who doesn’t get the giggles now and then under those circumstances?
Don’t answer that.
Michael was giving me his I’m concerned and a little disturbed look, which was adorable. I’m not a fragile flower. Hell, I was born and raised in Morganville, Texas, which is likely the only place vampires can call home; if you grow up human there, you learn how to deal with life-threatening danger the way other, luckier people learn to deal with those annoying telemarketers. I don’t eat danger for breakfast, because it’s really just a tiny little bite size snack in hometown terms.
Michael, meanwhile, was the same … but different. He’d also grown up human in Morganville, but unlike me, he’d had the seriously bad misfortune to actually be bitten, almost two years ago. It hadn’t gone well for him, and now, my all-time best guy ever was … well, fanged. But fighting to stay the Michael I’d always loved, which was nice, because we were, well, married now. Fangs and all.
He couldn’t have looked less bloodsucker-y, really. Gorgeous blond hair, clear blue eyes, the face that in earlier ages they would have put on a really hot marble angel … not vampire material, generally. He even dressed like he was a regular dude who was looking forward to being of legal drinking age … I wondered if he ever lamented the fact that he was going to be carded for all of his immortal life. Probably.
Me, I looked like I was aspiring to be what he actually was, what with my Goth black hair (temporarily streaked with electric blue, because, why not?), and the baggy black cargo pants and stomp-em boots. My shirt was tight, sheer, black over black, and had a particularly cool dark-blue-on-black embossed skull on it. Fighting clothes, although Michael had just shaken his head when he’d seen what I decided to wear for our middle-of-the-night tour of the scary carnival grounds. He just didn’t know what was stalking-appropriate, obviously. Men. No fashion sense.
“Over there,” Michael whispered, and nodded toward – od course — the haunted ride. It was what the carnies called a dark ride, which I thought was awesomely appropriate, especially tonight, what with all the creepy skulking around. The structure featured an absolutely gigantic Grim Reaper leaning over the top of it, gripping his scythe in one bony hand as the other reached down for the would-be riders. It probably looked super cheesy in the daylight, but tonight, I could practically see those black, flowing robes ripple in the cold wind.
If I believed in omens, that would probably be a really bad one.
“We’re looking for Death? Found him,” I said. I got another look, but also a smile. “Right. Stealth mode, engaged.” I made a zipping motion across my mouth. He did me the favor of not quite rolling his eyes.
We crept from the cover of the toy shed to that of a greasy-looking shack that dispensed hot dogs of doubtful meat content (oooh, but they had funnel cakes!), and then made it to the shadows next to the dark ride itself. The roller coaster was making a thin, high, creaking sound in the wind, and across the way, a shadowy carousel’s painted horses leered at me with wild eyes.
God, I loved this place. I wondered how Michael would feel about running away to join the circus.
Michael had paused, listening, doing that vampire senses thing; I was content to wait for him to get back to me with a plan. I was just glad he’d asked me to come along as his backup. Usually our mutual buddy Shane got that job; to be fair, Shane was big, strong, and built for quality mayhem, but he was trying to cut down on the fighting, and I was happy to help that along. I’d seen all of us wearing sporty black and blue too much lately. Not the Goth kind. The bruise kind. Much tougher to accessorize.
We were operating on a bona fide secret mission, dispatched by the Founder of Morganville herself, the vampire Amelie — an ice-cold queen of a lady, and I was not on her list of Most Favorite right now, but I was incidental to this plan. Michael was her agent. Hmmm, he’d looked so nice in a James Bondian tuxedo at our wedding …
I had to shake myself and put away the hot mental image for later. We — or he, more precisely — had work to do. This carnival was two towns over from Morganville, so we had to be on serious best behavior … this wasn’t home, with its peculiar rules and dangers. It was the real world, which was in many ways more dangerous for us, because whatever the rules might be, we probably didn’t fully understand them.
This was one of those no-name traveling shows that still honored the old tradition of “novelty acts” … or, more properly, freak shows, which I’d read about in books. Books that responsible adults frowned upon, but I’d lapped up as a kid. Said “novelties” usually included ancient mummies that were usually fakes or so badly mauled it’d take that dog-headed Egyptian god a week to put it back together … and, of course, the usual set of human oddities. Real tall, real short, real fat, fake facial hair, fake shapeshifting acts … and this one had one actual, real vampire, locked in a cage just like the mangy tiger and the totally depressed lion. That was a “special” freak show, only for high-rolling customers who got off on seeing what they assumed was a guy in makeup biting the neck of a partner in crime … only he was a real vampire, and those were real victims, and Amelie wanted it stopped, immediately.
She wasn’t concerned about the human lives being lost, of course. That was never going to be any vampire’s primary concern. She wanted to rescue the neck-muncher, and make sure nobody ever caught a clue that there was such a thing as a real, genuine vampire in their midst. Oh, the carnies knew, of course … if they hadn’t known before grabbing said bloodsucker, they certainly had by the time they started feeding him victims.
If Michael had received instructions on what to do about that situation, he didn’t tell, and I didn’t ask.
Right now, we were paying attention to one of the carnies making the rounds, checking to make sure everything was locked up and turned off. He was a big, burly guy — a roustabout or strongman — and he was carrying a flashy knife on his belt, plus a wooden baseball bat, the better to beat you with, my dear. From the look on his face when he came out of the dark ride, it didn’t seem that security was his favorite job in the world when nothing happened. He looked more like he hoped to find an excuse to use the bat on something that would beg him to stop.
Michael suddenly cocked his head. In the moonlight, his eyes still had small pupils, like I would have had in full sun. Great night vision, vampires. One of the many depressing advantages they had over the breathing version of humanity. He squeezed my hand, gently, and nodded toward the ride that Batty McMurder was just leaving. Oh, great. Perfect.
No, I really meant that. Perfect! I practically wiggled with excitement. I loved haunted house rides, because hello, mechanical scares, nothing actually dead and lurching in there. Well, normally. Tonight might very well be an exception.
We hurried across the open ground. Michael didn’t make any noi
se, and I tried to minimize mine, but the thump of my combat boots still sounded way too loud. He stopped me before I jumped up on the deck of the ride, urgently making a shushing motion; I eased up carefully, and immediately saw why … it creaked, a lot. Moving slowly made the creaking sound more like the general creepy noise made by the wind, and less a neon we’re up in your business, sneaking around sign.
Michael kept hold of my hand, and led me under the leering glare of the Grim Reaper into a darkness that smelled like mold and engine oil. And boy, I mean darkness … it was a close, claustrophobic kind of inky emptiness, and except for the tight grip of Michael’s cool hand on mine, I wouldn’t have been able to tell it from space. No, I lie. At least in space, there are stars.
From the feel of the floor under my boots, we were on some kind of raised wooden walkway — probably a maintenance area. I felt a rising panic as we kept walking — what if something fell on me, like a giant hairy spider? It was Texas, after all, home of all kinds of stinging, biting, poisonous creatures. I wanted to hold up my free hand and sweep the air in front of me, but that was kind of useless; Michael was going first. He’d keep me safe.
It was a bit of a shock when I saw that the darkness was going a little gray, and at first I thought there was something wrong with my eyes, but no. There was a thin strip of light up ahead, on the left, like what would escape under the bottom of a door. It revealed an upright coffin with — appropriately enough — a cheap-looking mechanical dummy dressed in vintage Dracula drag that would probably launch out at the creaking, trundling carts when the power was on.
There was a hidden door behind Dummy Drac.
We crossed the tracks, and I stepped carefully to avoid tripping any switches or getting my boots caught in the rails. I was glad I’d worn the heavy things, because a rat ran out of the dark and raced over my laces, heading for cover on the other side. I managed not to squeak, though there might have been a dry rattling in my throat. Might.
Michael took hold of the knob of the door and lightly turned it, then shook his head. Locked, obv. That posed no serious issues for him, but it’d make some noise; the glow of the light under the door made me less of a blind human liability, so I pulled my hand free of his and pulled the snub-nosed revolver out of my belly pack. I didn’t like guns, particularly, but they were real useful around humans who meant me no good. I had a knife, too, but if it came to hand-to-hand with Mr. Batty out there, it wasn’t going to be an even match, and I liked advantages.
Michael twisted, hard, and broke something metallic inside the door with a harsh snap. The knob slid out, and he reached into the hole and manipulated things until there was a click, and the door yawned open, letting loose a flood of what seemed like a 500-watt spotlight … but it was just one bulb, not even remotely bright. My eyes adjusted quickly, and I shut the door behind us. Without the lock, it wasn’t going to do much good, but I followed Michael’s lead and reached into the empty hole where the knob had been to push on metal until the tongue slipped back in place. It’d slow them down, at least.
When I turned to look, I saw we were in a plain metal room. The one bulb was on a swinging chain hanging in the middle of the open space. There was a miniature viewing stand of seats that would hold maybe twenty people, if they were really friendly, and then there was the cage. It was the size of something you’d use for a lion or tiger act, big enough to move around in; it held a cot with a blanket and a pillow, and some kind of pot under the bed I assumed was their version of a portable toilet. Apart from that, it was just iron bars coated with silver, and a single stoutly built wooden chair that was bolted to the floor at the center of the cage.
There were stains on the floor around it, and a few soaked into the wood. Dark stains. I told myself it was chocolate, and left it at that. I was too busy staring at the vampire in the cage.
Because he was just a kid.
I mean, a KID. Maybe twelve, thirteen years old at the most — a thin boy with long legs that he had tented up as he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling of the room. He must have heard us coming, but he hadn’t moved, not an inch. From the still way he lay, I’d have thought he was regular dead, but he was the special kind. The kind that still had motion.
“Hey,” Michael said softly. “You need out of there?”
That made the kid sit up, with a sudden fluidity that made me glad there were bars between him and me; Michael didn’t move like that. Most vampires in Morganville didn’t, because they were trying to fit in, be less alarming to the people they farm for money and blood. (To their credit, most of the blood donations are voluntary, through the blood bank. It’s sort of like the Mafia, but with fangs.)
Seeing a vampire move like the pure predators they are … that was a bit scary. So was the emptiness in this kid’s eyes, the utter lack of interest or emotion. He could have been the lion the cage was meant for, only at least a lion would have more of an opinion.
“Open it,” the kid said, and rattled the door. It was extra sturdy; he couldn’t hold it for more than a second before the silver began to burn him. He was only wearing a ratty, dirty pair of khaki shorts that were two sizes too large for him — no shirt, and his thin chest was as pale as ivory. Veins showed blue underneath the skin, like one of those see-through anatomy dolls. “Open it.” He didn’t even sound angry, or hopeful, or desperate. The words were just as emotionless as his eyes. Most vampires were faking it, to some extent or other, but this kid — I had the eerie idea that he might never have been human at all.
Michael was considering him thoughtfully, although he was putting on the leather gloves he’d brought along in the event of silver. Unlike the kid, I could read emotion in my honey’s expressions … and he looked just as startled and worried about what we were facing as me. “In a second,” he said. “What’s your name?”
The kid blinked, a slow movement like he’d learned it from observation, not nature. “Jeremy,” he said. “My name is Jeremy.”
“Okay, Jeremy,” Michael said, in a soft calming voice, the way you’d speak to a particularly dangerous-looking wild dog. “Are you hurt?” He got a head shake. “Hungry?”
That got a flat stare for a second, and then Jeremy turned it on me. “Let me have her, and I’ll be fine.”
“Uh, no, creepy kid, really not happening,” I said. “I’m not your lunch.”
Jeremy didn’t even bother to blink this time. Honestly, the kid was scarier than anything I’d seen out there in the carnival.
“Jeremy,” Michael said. He sounded colder now, with an edge; it got the kid’s attention in a flash. “I’m here to get you out, but you so much as look at her again, much less touch her, and I’ll walk away and leave you to rot. Understood?”
Jeremy tilted his head a little to the side, considering Michael, and then said, “If that’s what you want, then I won’t touch her.”
“Swear,” I said. “Pinkie swear.”
He shrugged. “I swear.” I didn’t hear any particular meaning in it, which wasn’t good, but we didn’t have a wealth of choices. Amelie’s instructions were to bring the weird kid back with us, not leave him here. Michael was doing his best.
“Go watch the door,” Michael said to me, and I nodded and backed off to stand next to it. That not-so-coincidentally put a lot of space between me and Jeremy, with Michael in the middle between us. I watched as Michael put gloved hands on the bars, got a firm grip, and applied pressure. He was strong, but the bars just groaned and held. Jeremy watched with interest but no emotion as Michael panted, shook off the strain, and tried again. I winced when I saw the pain on his face; the stuff was burning him even through the gloves.
“Michael,” I said. “Did you see any tools out there?” Because this crew didn’t seem like the type to be neat about put things away. He took a step back from the cage, stripped off his gloves, and I saw that beneath them his hands were swollen and pink with burns. Ouch. Very high silver content.
“Maybe,” he said. “Look, this silver’s pre
tty soft, but I can’t get a grip even with the gloves. I’ll go get the tools. It’ll just take a second.”
“A second,” I repeated. “Promise?”
Our eyes locked, and he smiled just a little. “Cross my heart,” he said. “Jeremy, you back off and sit on your bed. Eve’s going to stay with you.”
Jeremy said nothing, but he walked back to his cot and stretched out, looking bored with the whole thing. I considered him for a second, then nodded. “I’ll be fine. Go.”
Michael was a blurred flash that paused to get the door open, and then it swung shut behind him with a soft thump. I took a deep breath and wished I’d worn something warmer — all of a sudden, it seemed much colder with him gone. I walked over to the cage and considered it. It didn’t look so hard. The silver was wire, and it was wrapped around the bars tightly, but when I found an end of the wire and grabbed it, it bent easily enough – high content silver, pretty soft. I was concentrating on unwinding it so hard that for a second I didn’t realize that Jeremy had moved, until I glanced up.
He was standing only a few feet away, staring at the point where I was unwinding the silver. NOT at me, which I supposed fell under the letter of the law. I swallowed and said, “Michael told you to stay on the bed.”
“No,” he said. “He told me to go to the bed. He didn’t tell me to stay there.”
Wonderful, he had a kid’s built-in ability to parse orders and find loopholes. That was just great. “Yeah, well, why don’t you just sit down over there? It’ll take a little time to do this.”
He didn’t move. Evidently, I didn’t have the same kind of authority as Michael wielded. Up close-ish, Jeremy’s eyes were not black, they were a very dark brown, with a central ring of amber. They’d have been nice if they’d been in a face that moved like a human being’s, but as it was, they reminded me of glassy doll’s eyes. I like a good creep-out as much as any self-respecting Goth, but this kid was giving me a serious freaking.
“You smell nice,” he said.
