Carnival World Boxed Set (Episodes 1-3) Page 2

  His friends at school always talked badly about their sisters, if they had any. But not Sam. He never said anything bad about Summer. He liked her and she always made him laugh.

  “This is the best ride ever!” he yelled.

  Summer laughed, then threw her arms into the air and hollered at the top of her lungs, “Wahoo!”

  He did it too and it made his stomach sink and reel even more. Then the ride started to slow down and he shouted, “Booooooo!”

  Summer put her arm around him. “We can go again if you want.”

  “Cool.”

  The whirring of the ride’s engines spurted, then stopped, and its cars slowed even more. Sam didn’t want it to end, but he knew it couldn’t go on forever. Other people would want to ride.

  The car slowed even more and after some creaking and groaning, finally came to a complete stop. Sam groaned but when he looked up, he noticed the canvas canopy was still overtopping the car.

  “Hey, they forgot to lift the top,” he said.

  Summer shuffled in the seat and lifted up a little so she could see over the car’s metal back.

  “Do you think it’s broken?” he asked.

  “Must be.”

  A little kernel of fear started to bounce around in his belly. What if they were stuck in here? The air seemed to be getting hotter and thinner. Sam found he was having a hard time breathing.

  He grabbed Summer’s arm. She looked down at him and frowned. “It’s okay, buddy. Nothing to worry about. They’ll fix it and we’ll be out of here.”

  He nodded but he didn’t feel reassured. Something was wrong. He just knew it. He had the same sort of feeling he had the day before his hamster, Chuckles, died. It was a terrible ill feeling that made his stomach clench tight. The same type of clench he got right before throwing up. He once threw up spaghetti and long strands of it came out of his nose. It had burned something awful. He tightened his jaw, forcing down the urge to retch.

  And that was when a bloodcurdling scream pierced the strange, unnerving silence.

  Chapter 2

  “I’m scared.” Sam huddled into Summer’s side, gripping her arm with his little hands. The knuckles on his right hand turned white.

  “It’s all right, Sammy,” she reassured him, even though her heart hammered so hard it hurt. That scream had rattled her right down to the bones.

  “It’s not. Sumthin’s really wrong.”

  She saw the terror in his pale face. She’d never seen him so frightened before, not even after watching Halloween 2.0 with her in the dark. His little body was even shaking.

  “Okay. Let’s get this top off and we can see what’s going on.” She tried to stand but Sam was glued to her so tightly she found it hard to move. He was shaking his head, eyes wide, lips pressed together so hard they were turning blue.

  She grabbed his hands and tried to disentangle herself. “It’s okay, Sammy,” she tried again, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. I just need my arms so I can drag this canvas away, so we can get out.”

  He was still shaking his head but his grip loosened a little and she was able to stand unhindered. Her head hit the canvas barrier. Leaning over the side of the car, she grabbed the edge of the fabric tube and pulled on it.

  At first it didn’t move, but she pulled harder and it gave way. She was able to pull it up enough that she and Sam could get out. “Out you go,” she said to Sam as she held up part of the canvas.

  He shook his head. “I don’t wanna.”

  She sighed, running out of patience. “Sam, it’s fine. Just go.”

  “It’s not fine. There’s something bad out there. There are monsters out there.”

  “You’re being silly.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him across the seat toward the opening. “I don’t want to push you out, but I will.”

  He struggled against her at first, but she gave him the look, the one that told him that she wasn’t playing, and he better do as he was told. He settled down. With a big sigh, he scrambled through the hole she’d made. She followed him out, not wanting him to be alone for more than a few seconds.

  Standing, she brushed at her shorts (there was dirt and what looked like oil on them), then smiled down at Sam. “You see? Nothing to it.”

  Except Sam wasn’t smiling. He was staring wide-eyed into the distance, his mouth gaping open. “I told you. I told you something bad was going to happen.”

  She turned in the same direction to see what he was looking at, and wished she hadn’t.

  Nicole didn’t scream again, but as she clutched Darien’s arm she made mewling noises like an injured puppy would make. Her sharp nails were digging into his flesh. But he didn’t know how to tell her to stop. He wasn’t really sure he wanted her to. Maybe the pain zinging up his arm would wake him, because he was certain beyond all reason that he was dreaming. He had to be, because there could be no other explanation for what he was seeing.

  After the ride had stopped and he and Nicole crawled out from under the canvas, Darien expected pandemonium as carnies rushed to fix the problem with the ride. He expected scowls and sighs of impatience from the people waiting in line to ride next. But that’s not what happened.

  There were no carnies, not one. And there weren’t impatient people lined up to get on the caterpillar. Not one of those, either. In fact, there was nothing. Except the dustbowls that swirled around on the cracked and curled dirt ground surrounding the ride.

  Darien looked around him as others emerged from underneath the caterpillar’s cocoon. There was Ryan, the strange kid from school, two other teens he didn’t know (a brother and sister, it looked like), and the last to come out were Summer and her younger brother. They all glanced around, vacant looks on their faces, just as confused and shocked as he was.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  This from the boy he didn’t know. He stepped up to stand beside Darien and Nicole. The girl he was with hung on to his hand. “Where is everyone?”

  “I don’t have a damn clue,” Darien said. “It’s like everyone just upped and vanished.”

  But it was clearly more than that. Not only was the carnival completely empty, except for the seven of them standing on the platform of the caterpillar ride, but it looked like everything around them was timeworn and deteriorating. As if years had passed instead of a few minutes.

  The ground was hard-packed dirt, cracked, with pieces curling up like pale brown paper. It appeared to have not gotten water in years, not one drop, instead of the surprise downpour they’d had just a few weeks before. Where the ground cracked open, weeds and yellowing grasses jutted through. Not a lot though, because of the obvious lack of moisture. There were some weeds standing at least six feet tall near the other broken-down carnival rides. Like reedy plant people waiting to ride the Ferris wheel.

  The buildings surrounding the caterpillar—like Game Alley, where Darien had been planning to try his luck at the shooting gallery, so he could win Nicole a giant, stuffed bear—had the look of old ramshackle shanties. In some places the white paint had peeled completely off, leaving the wood underneath, also cracked and aged, to show.

  The Ferris wheel’s bars were rusty. Weeds crawled along the bottom of it like snakes. Some of the cars were hanging by one bolt, a slight breeze causing them to swing. The creaking sound was like nails on a chalkboard to Darien. It took all he had not to put his hands over his ears.

  There was no other sound beyond that creaking, except for the few intakes of air from Summer’s little brother as he cried into her side.

  She soothed him as best she could by drawing a hand over his head. It was probably something she learned from her mother. Darien’s mom did the same thing to his little sister when she was sad or upset over something. He wished his mother was here to soothe him right about now.

  “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The freak Ryan leaned against the metal railing and lit up a cigarette. He blew smoke rings into the air as if this was just any other day to him. Maybe for hi
m it was like that.

  Darien had the sudden urge to walk over to Ryan and punch him in the nose. But he refrained. He felt like he needed to keep it together. Someone had to. Someone had to be tough and strong. A leader.

  He just wasn’t certain he was up for the task.

  Clutching Justin’s hand tight, Maddie stared at the emptiness around them. Her heart hammered in her throat. She’d never been so scared in her life. “It’s like an episode of The Twilight Zone.”

  “What’s The Twilight Zone?”

  Startled by the little voice, she whipped around to look at the little boy who spoke. He was pressed tight into someone she assumed was his sister. His eyes were wide and tears streaked his pale cheeks.

  “It’s an old TV show where something weird always happens to some guy. One of the first episodes is about this guy who finds himself completely alone in a small town. There’s evidence that people once lived there, but he doesn’t find anyone.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Find out he’d been hallucinating and he was actually an astronaut in isolation training for his trip to the moon.”

  “Well, I think it’s safe to say that we aren’t astronauts in some kind of training facility,” said the tall boy next to Justin.

  “Yeah, I don’t think this is a hallucination either,” the blonde girl with the little boy said.

  “What then?” Maddie asked. “Because this is pretty messed up.”

  “Time warp,” said the mysterious dark-haired boy with the dark sunglasses from his perch on the railing.

  “Shut up, freak. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The tall boy glared at him.

  Justin stirred beside her and glanced at the dark-haired boy. Up until then, she wasn’t even sure he was lucid. He’d been staring off into the distance. She’d almost pinched him to see if he was awake. “What do you mean?”

  The dark-haired boy swept his arm to the side, indicating everything around them. “It’s the same carnival.” He pointed at the Ferris wheel, then the candy floss trolley near the ride’s entrance. “All the same things in the same positions. But it’s obvious by the way the grass has grown and the plants have sprouted and wound their way about the machinery, that years have passed and not the ten minutes we were on the ride.”

  “How is that possible?” Maddie asked.

  “Don’t listen to him. He’s nutso,” the tall boy said. The girl beside him, clinging to his arm, had yet to speak. She had yet to move, for that matter. Maddie thought she looked like she was in a deep state of shock. She thought maybe someone should slap her across the face to wake her the hell up. She’d seen that in the movies and it always worked.

  “Ryan’s better in science than I am,” the blonde girl said, “So I’ll listen to him. At least it’s something.”

  “You can’t be serious, Summer,” the tall boy said, “The guy’s a nutter.”

  “At this point, I will at least listen. No one else is offering up another explanation,” Summer said.

  Maddie nudged Justin. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t a clue. Time warp sounds logical to me at this point.”

  She nodded and turned to the dark-haired boy. She didn’t know him from Adam, but someone had to have some kind of answer. And she needed to hear something. Because the alternative that was rattling around in her brain was insanity.

  “Okay, I’m game. I’ll listen to just about anything right now.”

  They were all looking at Ryan for answers. Just to make sure he wasn’t imagining it, he shut his eyes and opened them again. It was all still there. No sense in denying it. Ryan had never been one to muck about. Straight to the heart of the matter. That was how he liked to do things. As Sherlock Holmes might have said, once the impossible was eliminated whatever was left, even if it resembled the latest Silent Hill game, must be true.

  “Looks like we have no choice but to play along,” he announced to the others.

  A small voice piped up. “Play what?”

  It was the kid, Summer Vaughn’s little brother. The girl pulled him close to her. The two twins with dark hair and olive skin gazed at him with curiosity. Ryan was sure he’d seen the girl twin somewhere before. Darien Burton and his girlfriend were looking down at him like he was a bug. It didn’t take long for the high school pattern to reassert itself in those two. But they were still listening at least, because they were scared. He could see it in their eyes.

  Deep down, so was Ryan. The wrecked carnival stretched out in all directions. There was no noise, not even the wind. A heavy, musty smell hung in the air. It almost stuck to his skin. And yet Ryan felt certain they were not alone. The back of his neck had been tense since the moment they left the caterpillar. Someone or something was watching them from the trees nearby.

  He had plenty of reason to be scared. But he didn’t let that show. Not when he had their attention. Not when he was in control.

  “Nobody ever played a survival horror game on the Wii?” he asked.

  “I did. Once. I’m not liking where this is going,” answered the boy twin.

  “That’s not funny, Ryan,” said Summer.

  Still spooked, Ryan watched the gloom for any sign of movement. He saw none but couldn’t decide whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

  “Wasn’t meant to be, Vaughn. Wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Hey, why don’t you shut up, Mulvaney,” said Darien.

  Ryan sighed. Burton and his girlfriend had been silent as well but no longer. Nicole screamed some more.

  “Is anybody out there? Can anyone hear us?” she cried.

  They all looked around. Her screams slowly died away, echoing off the rusted remains of the carnival. For a moment Ryan thought he heard something answer. It wasn’t a voice, just a small shuffling, something moving fast along the ground, but not human. No one else seemed to hear it. If they did, they weren’t freaking out about it.

  They should. He didn’t make that survival horror reference for fun and giggles. Right now would be where something big and bad jumped out and ate the player.

  Ryan struggled to keep up his calm appearance. If something did happen, there was no other option but to run. The sky was growing dark and the fairground became more ominous by the second.

  Nicole was about to scream again when Darien snapped at her.

  “Just stop, okay!”

  Nicole backed away from Darien, a little stunned.

  “They would have heard you in the next county,” Ryan said. He wanted her to shut up. The last thing they needed was attention drawn to them.

  He now focused on the task at hand. He needed a weapon. He was sure help wasn’t going to arrive. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t have some company. He was certain something was with them, and it wasn’t friendly. Ryan headed to the rusted hulk of the Ferris wheel and yanked on the long metal lever.

  “You break it and they’ll throw you in jail,” said Darien, offering another bit of useless advice.

  Ryan pointed to the ruins around them. “Look around! Does it look like anyone’s coming to throw me in jail? Does it look like somebody’s coming to our rescue?”

  He went back to work and leaned in. The lever broke off with a loud KLANK. He felt the weight of it in his hands.

  This will do, he thought.

  He made a few practice swings with it. It wasn’t like any weapon he’d ever handled before. It was unbalanced, heavy and would probably break if he hit anything solid. It wasn’t tempered steel, after all. Ryan remembered the time he’d slammed an iron fireplace poker on the flagstone hearth. The tip had broken off, much to his surprise. His parents hadn’t been happy about that.

  Ryan made a few more cuts and thrusts in the air. The rough metal was rubbing his hands raw already. He picked up a rag and wrapped it around the end for a better grip. He tied it down at the end. The balance was still off, but Ryan was willing to sacrifice control for reach. He swung it around his head one last time. I
t whistled while it moved through the air. It’d be a bad day for anything or anyone who got hit with a stroke like that.

  He glanced back at the group. They were all looking at him. Maybe they were waiting for him to say something. With his “sword” in hand, he felt confident and steadier. He was still freaked out, probably more freaked out than any of them except for the little kid. But the hard iron in his hands allowed him to hide that.

  “Just to be clear, we are all seeing the same thing, right? There’s no people and this place looks like it’s been left to rot,” Ryan said.

  “That’s what I’m seeing,” said the olive-skinned girl.

  “Me too,” said Summer.

  “Well, just how long do you think it takes for metal structures like this one to corrode? Here’s a hint—it’s a lot longer than five minutes.” Ryan ate up the attention. At school they had avoided him. Now they were hanging on his every word.

  “What’s your point, Mulvaney?” asked Darien.

  Ryan told them, as much as anything to gather his own thoughts. Saying it all out loud made it seem more real.

  “There’s only a couple of things that could have happened. One, we’re all trapped in the same delusion. Not very likely. Two, everyone disappeared and someone hit this place with an aging ray or something. That’s downright impossible. Three, everything is fine, it’s just that we’re in another place.”

  “Another place?” asked Summer’s brother in a small voice.

  The dark-skinned boy chimed in. “You mean we went through something like a space warp? Like on Star Trek?”

  “Yes, exactly like that,” said Ryan.

  Darien added his two cents, naturally. “You are a total freaktard.”

  Ryan nodded. He’d always been the freak at school. Now he was the freak with the answers.

  “This total freaktard rides the bus for an hour every day to take special classes at the university in Cedar Falls. I’m being totally serious about the space warp or whatever you want to call it, people. Physicists think the universe is full of wormholes and tunnels into other universes. Labs all over the world study tachyons, micro-gravity, the Casimir effect.”