This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?
“You’d think that all I ever do around here is ride the rides,” said Janet.
“It’s not like you sit on roller coasters all day or anything,” said Jeff.
They were standing in the front lobby of the Morbid Manor, a little haunted house ride, waiting in line. Everything around them was gray, purple, and covered in cobwebs. It was all a combination of cotton and candy floss sprayed with enough preservatives to make it inedible.
Janet kept her distance from Jeff in the dark. She was in control there, not him, and she was ready to let him have it if he made a move on her, which he never did.
They passed a line of electric candles that flickered as though they were real. It made her want one for her bathroom. They had them in the gift shop, but something always distracted her on the way out and she’d forget to pick one up. The light and subtle heat of the lamp underneath moved a flame-shaped mirror on a tiny balancing point, and that heat moving the little mirror, with lights bouncing off of it, looked remarkably realistic.
They passed by an old skull face. At least that’s what they called him after hours. It was a painting rendered in a combination of layers that faded from a human gentleman to skull-faced horror in a top hat. It was a matter of shifting lights, different layers of cloth, and eventually, a plain black light that rendered the effect, but Janet didn’t think about that.
He was warning them not to come into his home, about the curse and how you would find yourselves transformed into mindless zombies before you could escape.
Janet never listened to this speech. She knew the story, but only because she liked to come in here alone, and read all the plaques that were up every fifteen feet. The audio in this part of the ride, the queue line, was horrible enough as it was, and every time someone opened the front door to come into the indoor line, the noise from the outside blew the illusion.
They passed several wriggling tarantulas, each with eight green glowing eyes up on a shelf. They were essentially walking straight through the line. Few were in there at the moment, and they were stopping to look just at what they wanted.
“Old man Archibald’s jumping spiders,” said Jeff.
“I always thought of them as skull faces hunting spiders,” said Janet.
“Sure, makes sense.”
They passed by an enormous fireplace with a rear-projected fire crackling in it. There was a space heater and some sound effects to go with it, but it only meant that they were about to get in.
She thought for just a second; she was sure the video of the fire was something else strange you could get in the gift shop on the way out, but a moment later, when they both stood in front of the fake fireplace, it was all wiped from her mind as the floor turned, with them and the fireplace and they found themselves on the other side of the secret panel.
She let out a brief scream, but it was always the suddenness and not the actual fright that elicited such a reaction as they turned around.
“I always wonder how handicapped folks get in here,” said Janet.
“There’s a bypass around the fireplace a few more feet down.”
“I like this way, though.”
“Me too.”
“Care for a ride through the manor?” said the humpback.
“What?” said Jeff.
They looked up. It was Phil. There’s something wrong with knowing everyone’s name all the time. He was one of three or four others we could see aiding folks in getting on the slowly moving cars, headed into the manor.
“This way, this way,” said Phil, the hunchback. We dressed him in gray, and lighter gray, and had a huge bulbous hump on his left shoulder under his costume. The others all had matching gray outfits and humps, no matter how tall or short they were. Two of them were ladies who were having a blast scaring kids as they helped them on board.
Phil led us to a car, crawling on its track, and took us each by the hand and helped us in. The cars were black but painted with purple fluorescent paint so you could see it in the black lights. Each car was a little different, but there were slight variations on convertibles with the top down.
Jeff slid in first, then Janet. “I want to drive.” He laughed and slid over. She got behind the wheel and acted like she was driving.
“Goodbye then,” said Phil, the hunchback. “Have a nice parish, and welcome to ghoul life,” he said, waving behind them as they turned the corner and into the ride.
Everything went dark. The car’s headlights illuminated all you could see ahead, and they weren’t doing much beyond pointing at the dark, and then slowly details appeared one by one. A corner of a ceiling, a bat, an ornate chair thumping back and forth like someone invisible must sit in it.
The first spider flew over them. This was the master’s training ground. A man stood, with a skull face, in full formal wear with a top hat and whip, and snapped it sharply. It flailed out and spiders jumped over them. Janet hung out, while Jeff ducked.
“Amusing, you still duck.”
“Call me a…”
“You rarely ride this, do you?”
“Can’t say I get in it often.”
A green glowing spider jumped down in front of them, then they spun around a hundred and eighty degrees quickly for another one to fall behind them. They swerved back.
They could hear the tire screech of tires that weren’t there, and it always smelled like burning rubber here to Janet. She wondered if folks burned rubber under the track so we’re somewhere they could smell it,
They turned a tight corner; it looked like the house was in the distance. The skull-faced man stiffly stood on a hill directing his hunting spiders. One of them jumped at the car with a jet from a fog machine and some misdirection, a projection of a werewolf on a hill on the other side of the car.
Jeff screamed and almost stood up.
Janet pulled him down just as the swinging axes slid above them like Great pendulums.
“I hate this ride.”
“It’s okay. Just a ride. Nothing can touch you.”
“I know, it’s stupid. I just get wired up.”
They turned a corner and went back into the house again.
“I once rode this thing trying to read a book instead of paying attention.”
“What book?”
“Why does everyone ask me that? I don’t know. It was some kind of horrible thing. I was trying to see if there were enough black lights on to light up the pages enough to read.”
“Did it work?”
A ghoul popped up behind Jeff for a jump scare. Jeff screamed, and Janet laughed, then quickly composed herself.
“Not really. You’d think there would be, but there’s not. It didn’t stop me from trying half a dozen times or more, though. I have done audiobooks on my phone. That’s fun.”
“I’ll bet this place is good for rock music, too.”
“Now you’re getting it.”
They passed under the great dining hall. There was a clear glass ceiling with the ghostly apparitions of twelve ladies all there to see a single young and wealthy man, old skull-face before he became an undead monster. He had a pet spider he was very proud of. It acted like a loyal puppy, but was still a furry beast the size of his outstretched hand. He’s been hiding it in his jacket.
The ladies there to see him, certainly each hoping for an invitation to court, scattered. They grabbed knives. They grabbed axes. There were guns mounted on his wall. They turned them, first on the spider, which was too fast for them, and a moment later they found out he had more of them at his call. They turned their weapons on him.
Then they set the place on fire and ran.
Each lady ran in a different direction.
Everything was dark.
The spiders swarmed over their master, biting him repeatedly.
The house rose, first in fiery red, then in cool blues and ghostly purples. Then the gentleman, old skull face, rose out of the rubble of the house. He flew up and called the spiders to him with his mind.
Then the car turned a quick corner, and they could hear him laughing. The next hall was a continuous stream of large paintings, each one depicting how he tracked down and killed each woman who did this to him.
In the end, they came to a vast mirror where first they saw themselves, then themselves as ghoulish demons, and then themselves as ghoulish demons covered in attack spiders.
“You’re all right, you’re all right,” said Phil, the hunchback as he helped them from the car.
“See you, Phil,” said Janet.
The hunchback waved back to her, then continued helping more people on board.
They came out to the sunlight streaming into the spooky gift shop. Magic tricks and spooky neck ties covered in a spider motif surrounded them. All the paintings were there, as were the toy cars of the ride vehicles.
Pins, umbrellas with the glowing spider on them, crystal balls, as well as crystal balls with floating spiders in them, ones that were snow globes with black glitter inside over a version of the house, complete with the wacky skull-face riding out with his spiders on one side.
Janet looked and looked, but forgot again what she was looking for, and quickly made her way toward the door where the smells of freshly made cotton candy and popcorn were drawing her back out of the attraction.
On her way out the door, one step down from the floor of the shop, Janet heard a crunch. It was the shell of something. It stopped her.
“Looks like a crab leg,” said Jeff. “Just a shell, but that’s pretty big.”
It was pink food. Someone nearby must sell it. She stepped back out of it though like she’d squished a big bug. She wouldn’t look at it.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Yeah, just don’t like shellfish. That’s all.”
“Come on, it’s just a shell.”
“Right. It’s just a shell.”
She tossed it into a trash can, then carefully, without a look back, she dragged Jeff down to a ring-toss game and started asking him for the owl, which was the biggest thing they had. About halfway to the owl, they never got there. She made the mistake of looking back and there was the shopkeeper, still watching her. The man looked like a ghoul. He was in a lot of makeup. His eyes lit up in the dark as he stared at her.
He kept his gaze for a moment and then retreated into the shop to help a young girl and her mother with a creepy dress for Halloween. They had one for each of the twelve.
While he wasn’t looking, she grabbed Jeff’s hand. “I’d like to leave now.”
“Now? I’m halfway there.”
“Please? Take me home.”
“Sure.” He took the smaller prize, which was a glowing hunting spider. He tried to give it to her, but she kept giving it back.
“You want to go back to Blueberry Falls or…”
“On home. No. I guess I’ve got another couple of tours today. “
He led her back around to blueberry falls, which were built up as if they might be deep in the nearby rock where the rest of the park stood.
“Janet, you ready for a tour? I got two backed up here now.”
“I got it, Mr. Smith. Let me get my ranger’s hat.”
