Out and Back
BARBARA RODEN IS A World Fantasy Award-winning editor and publisher (for Ash-Tree Press), whose short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection, Horror: Best of the Year 2005, Bound for Evil, Strange Tales 2, Gaslight Grimoire and Gaslight Grotesque, and Poe. Her first collection, Northwest Passages, was published by Prime Books in October 2009.
“My cousin-by-marriage Sean Lavery, knowing my love for weird and outré websites, sent me a link to the Dark Roasted Blend site (www.darkroastedblend.com),” reveals the author, “where I found several pages featuring photographs of abandoned places.
“My imagination was fired by pictures taken at Chippewa Lake Park in Medina, Ohio, which opened in 1878 and was abandoned in 1978, with the buildings and rides left to rot where they stood, and I began looking around for some information about the park.
“I’ve always had a fondness for amusement parks, ever since I was a child visiting Vancouver’s Pacific National Exhibition with my father and my brother: an annual trip which was one of the red-letter days on my childhood calendar. The photographs of Chippewa Lake Park were equal parts eerie and sad, for anyone who has ever thrilled to the sights and sounds of a midway, and the story sprang, almost fully-formed, into my head; one of the few times that’s happened.”
To see some of the pictures that inspired the following story, visit: www.defunctparks.com/parks/OH/ChippewaLake/chippewa-lake.htm.
“KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN. I don’t want to miss it.”
“How hard can it be to miss?” Linda asked, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “It’s not the sort of thing you’re going to drive past and not see.”
“It’s been abandoned for a long time,” said Allan patiently. “It’s not like there are going to be signs. Besides,” - he waved one hand at the dispirited housing development they were driving through – “the place has grown up a lot. Back when it was built it was a long way from anywhere; nothing but scrub and fields.”
“So why’d anyone build an amusement park miles from where people lived?” Linda wasn’t particularly interested in the answer, but it had been a long drive, and she was tired of the silence; tired, full stop.
Allan shrugged. “I dunno. Guess land was cheap. And there’s a lake; that’s what it was named after. Must’ve been a popular spot for people to come with their families.”
“What are you expecting to see?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t been able to find out much. It’s kind of off the beaten track” – Linda gave a hollow laugh, as if to say You’re kidding me – “and not too many people seem to have been here. I’m hoping to get some good pictures; put them up on my website.”
“Great.” Linda stared out the window. “We take a day out of our vacation just so you can maybe get some pictures of you’re not sure what – if it’s still there, and if we find it – and then you’ll spend hours putting them up on a website for three people to see. Hooray.”
Allan glanced sideways at her. “Hey, it’s just one day. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Well, you got it wrong then. It’s one day out of the vacation I’ve been looking forward to for months, thinking – stupid me – that we’d have a nice relaxing time, no chasing around like we do every weekend, me being dragged off to some abandoned place or weird site that you just have to see. All I want is a rest, Allan.”
“You didn’t have to come, you know. You could have stayed back at the hotel.”
“Yeah, I guess I could. While you took the car, I could’ve stayed in the hotel room, and then when I got bored I could’ve gone down to the pool, and then I could’ve gone back to the room. Thrilling. Holidays are supposed to be about doing things together.”
Allan shook his head. There was no point arguing with her when she got like this. When he’d realized their trip would take them so close – well, within a hundred miles or so – to White Lake Park he’d planned to visit it; he just hadn’t mentioned it to Linda until that morning. He’d honestly thought that the idea of visiting another abandoned amusement park would appeal to her as much as it did to him. It wasn’t every day you got a chance to see something like this. He was trying to figure out a way to say that without provoking her further when he glanced to his left and saw something that made him start, so that the car swerved and Linda uttered a startled “Hey!”
“Look! Over there! Do you see it?” Allan slowed the car to a crawl. “There!”
Linda craned her neck and peered through the driver’s window. Behind the tired, sagging houses that lined the road she could see the tops of trees, an unbroken line stretching in both directions and apparently away from the houses as well. For a few moments that was all she could see, and she was about to ask what he was looking at when she saw it too.
It came into focus so suddenly that she almost jerked her head back in surprise. One moment she was looking at an innocuous treescape, leafy green boughs of maples and oaks and buckeyes fluttering in the breeze, and the next she could see, twisting its way through the branches, the unmistakable silhouette of a roller coaster track, wooden supports criss-crossing beneath. Her eye followed the track and she saw it dip out of sight behind the houses; then, further ahead, it rose again, and she had an impression as of some huge beast crouched behind the houses, watching, waiting. She shook her head and blinked, and despite the heat of the day she shivered.
Allan had pulled onto the shoulder and stopped the car. “There must be a way in,” he muttered. “Some sort of entrance . . .”
“Long gone, I’ll bet,” said Linda. “Place is probably locked up tighter than a drum. Can you imagine the lawsuits?”
Allan didn’t hear; or at least pretended not to. “There’s got to be access from behind these houses. They back right on to it.”
“What are you going to do? Walk through someone’s back yard, climb their fence? Honestly, Allan . . .”
“There.” He pointed to a house that stood slightly apart from its neighbours. It was a good deal older than most of the other houses in the area, sitting in the middle of an unkempt lawn choked with dandelions, a battered wooden fence which had once been white standing guard in front like a mouthful of broken teeth. To one side was a dusty laneway with a half-dozen cars parked in it, and Allan looked at them with suspicion.
“Typical,” he muttered. “Bet all these people are here to look at the park. Won’t be able to move for tripping over them, gawking, taking pictures.”
“And that makes them different to you – how, exactly?”
Allan said nothing as he pulled in beside the last one in the row, a dirty Ford Focus with a baby seat in the back. He reached into the back of their own car and fished around for the bag containing his camera and notebook. When he got out, he slammed the door with more force than Linda thought was strictly necessary, although she refrained from commenting.
The late morning heat was oppressive, like a wet woollen blanket. Linda pushed a limp strand of brown hair behind one ear, then smoothed out her skirt, which felt damp and clammy. Allan glanced at her.
“Don’t know why you wore that,” he muttered. “Not very practical.”
“Yeah, well, maybe if you’d told me we’d be climbing over fences and forcing our way through undergrowth I’d’ve worn something more suitable, like Army fatigues and steel-toed boots. Silly me, I thought when you said ‘amusement park’ it meant some place civilized, with a midway and something to eat. My own stupid fault. After all this time I should’ve known better.”
Allan said nothing. They were here now, and he was determined to make the most of it. Nothing Linda said would get him down. He’d deal with it later, like he always did, try to smooth things over. The main thing at the moment was to figure out a way into the park.
“Looks as if there might be a door in that fence.” He glanced at the house. “Wouldn’t be surprised if this was built when the park was.”
“Maybe.” Linda shrugged. She had been looking at the row of cars. “Don’t think you have to worry too much about anyone else beating you to your scoop.” When Allan looked puzzled, she pointed. “Most of these are pretty old. They don’t look like they’ve gone anywhere in years. Someone probably has a spare parts business on the side.”
Allan looked more closely at the cars, and had to admit that Linda was probably right. They all looked old and battered; at least two of them had flat tyres, and the oldest one – a mid-1970s station wagon at the far end of the row - was so rusted that the car would likely fall to pieces if anyone tried to move it. No competition, he thought with satisfaction.
Linda’s voice broke in on his thoughts. “So, what’re we going to do? Stand here all day? C’mon, Allan, let’s get this over with.”
“All right, all right.” He slung the bag over his shoulder. Part of him wanted to head straight to the fence and go in, not bother with anything like permission in case someone tried to stop him, but another part of him knew from experience that it was best to get acknowledgment from someone – anyone – of what he was doing, to save awkwardness later on. Not that something like lack of permission would stop him; he’d just find another way in. He always did. He jerked his head in the direction of the house. “I’m just going to go and make sure it’s okay,” he said, and began walking towards what looked like the main door, at the back of the house facing the park. After a moment Linda followed him.
There was no doorbell, so Allan rapped on the wooden door, the sound harsh in the still morning air. After a few moments there was a noise from inside, as of footsteps hurrying. A woman’s voice called out anxiously “Bill?”, and the door opened so suddenly that both of them stepped back a pace.
The woman who stood framed in the peeling paint of the door frame was probably in her early thirties, but looked considerably older: her hair had obviously not been cut for some time, and was streaked with grey, and she wore no make-up on her pale face. She was dressed in a faded T-shirt and skirt, the latter with its hem trailing down at one side and two or three rips, inexpertly mended, threatening to unravel further. A small child – a boy, no more than three or so – was peering from behind her legs, looking half-fearfully, half-hopefully at Allan and Linda. There was a suggestion of more people further down the hallway – a muffled murmur, as of voices whispering – but no one else appeared.
Allan cleared his throat. “Uh, hi. We were – we were hoping to be able to get into the park, have a look around. Do you think that would be a problem?”
The woman looked them both up and down. A look almost of disappointment had appeared on her face when she had opened the door and seen them. It was now replaced by one of resignation, and Allan had a sinking feeling that she was going to tell them they couldn’t go in. Some sort of caretaker, he thought, there’s bound to be one. He was taken aback when she said, in a flat voice, “There’s nothing to stop you going in, if you want to.”
“Really? Wow, that’s – that’s great. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s got nothing to do with me. Anyone who wants to go in there is free to do so.”
“Ah. Well, that’s good to know. Are you the caretaker or something?”
“No. This used to be the caretaker’s house, a long time ago. You can get into the park through there.” She pointed to the door in the fence at the bottom of the yard.
“I see.” Allan nodded towards the parked cars. “Guess you get a lot of people coming here, wanting to have a look.”
The woman followed his gaze. “A few. Not many. Those cars are all ours.”
“‘Ours’?” Allan queried.
“Yes. The people in this house.”
“Have you lived here long?”
“I’ve been here for . . .” The woman paused and her brow furrowed, as if the effort of calculating were a difficult one. “Two years. Maybe. Not as long as some.”
“I see.” There was a pause, and when it looked set to continue indefinitely Allan said, “So it’s okay if we go in, then? We won’t disturb anything, cause any damage. We’ll let you know when we’re done, if you want, tell you when we’re leaving.”
“Oh, that’s fine. We’ll know when you’re done.”
“Ah. Well, that’s – that’s great, then. We’ll see you later.”
The woman said nothing as they turned and headed towards the door in the fence. They were both conscious of her gaze on them as they made their way through the long grass, although when Linda turned and looked while Allan wrestled with the door in the fence she saw that the woman had gone and the house door was shut. She thought she saw a curtain twitch at one of the lower windows, and there was a suggestion of a figure standing at one of the upstairs windows, but she could not be sure.
Allan grunted and swore as he struggled with the door, which was jammed shut. “One good thing, it means no one else has been this way for a while,” he said, giving the door a shove. With a creak and a groan it swung open, and Allan almost fell through, recovering his balance at the last moment. He peered through the opening and took a deep breath. She couldn’t see his face, but Linda knew that his eyes were shining and that he had a goofy smile on his face, like a kid getting his first look at the tree on Christmas morning. How can I compete with that? she thought. Before she could block it, out came the answer: You can’t.
She watched as Allan disappeared through the door, and for a moment thought about not following him, of heading back to the car – she had a spare set of keys in her bag, after all, she could just get in and drive away, leave him here to his precious park, go do something interesting, something she wanted to do, instead of trailing after him as she had so many times, pretending to be interested. He probably wouldn’t even notice she wasn’t there. Then, as she saw him receding into the undergrowth that choked the other side of the fence, Linda took a deep breath of her own and followed him in.
If she hadn’t known she was in a former amusement park, she would never have guessed. Trees crowded round on all sides and weeds ran rampant. There was the suggestion of a trail, but nothing to indicate what the site had once been, until she was brought up short by Allan stopping suddenly in front of her and muttering “Holy shit, that’s brilliant.” A moment later he was fumbling inside his bag for his camera, and Linda moved around him so that she could see.
A white shape loomed out of a thicket of buckeyes ahead and to their right. It looked as though the vegetation were trying to seize the building and pull it back in amongst the trees, and it took Linda a moment to realize what it was: a small booth with an overhanging roof and windows on three of the four sides, one of them half-covered with a wooden shutter. The building had once been painted in gay shades of red and yellow, but the paint had faded and peeled, and one side showed signs of scorching. Linda was trying to figure out what it was when Allan spoke.
“Ticket booth,” he flung over his shoulder. “Great, isn’t it?”
“Brilliant.” Linda took a step closer. “Why’s it burned?”
“I dunno. I think there’s a lot of fire damage in the park. People get in, start fires just for the fun of it.”
“Whatever turns you on, I guess.” Linda tried to picture what the booth would have looked like with children lined up in front, jostling each other as they waited impatiently to buy tickets, coins and crumpled dollar bills clutched in sticky hands, the sounds and smells of the midway assailing and enticing them from all sides, but failed utterly. Nothing of that past remained. Instead of the music and clatter of the rides there was the soft, sad sound of wind through branches; instead of the smell of corn dogs and fried onions and cotton candy there was the scent of grass and dirt and dead leaves. She shivered and moved closer to Allan.
“Can we go now?” she asked, and he turned to her, startled.
“What do you mean, go? We only just got here. There’s tons more to see.”
“I just meant can we move on? How many pictures of a ticket booth do you really need?”
“Yeah, okay, I see what you mean.” He dug around inside his bag for a moment and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. He studied it, twisting it and glancing round him as if trying to orientate himself. “Okay, we came in about here,” he muttered, looking at the paper, “which means that if we head in that direction” – he pointed – “we should hit the midway. C’mon, let’s go.”
They skirted round the empty booth, Linda casting a backward glance at it as they moved away. The one shutter still in place moved slightly, as if waving at her, and she quickly turned and headed after Allan, who was following a rough path which led deeper into the trees.
“So, are we headed anywhere in particular, or are we just wandering aimlessly?” Linda’s voice sounded harsh in the silence.
“Well, I really want to see some of the midway rides. What’s left of them, anyway. That’s where the real interest is.”
“Interest? You’re kidding me.” Linda waved one hand at the desolation around them. “If there was any interest in this place it wouldn’t be left here to rot. What happened to it, anyway?”
Allan shrugged. “I don’t know. There’re different stories. There was a big fire in the grand ballroom, when the park was still going, and they had to shut it down for a while, and I think people started drifting away, forgot it was here. And there’s supposed to have been someone who died on one of the rides.”
Linda stopped in her tracks. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“No, of course not.” Allan stared at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Are we here on another one of your ghost hunts?”
“No, we’re not here on a ‘ghost hunt’. Honestly, what do you take me for?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. Remember that house you just had to go to on a certain date, and that place – where was it -where that ghost ship was supposed to appear? Took me two days to get warm again, all so you could think that maybe you saw something. That I didn’t see, in case you forgot.”
Allan shook his head. “Jeez, Linda, would you stop twisting things? All I said was there’s a story about someone dying here on one of the rides. I don’t even know if it’s true. It’s hard to pin down that kind of thing, ’cause these places always try to hush it up if they can. If it did happen, it was a long time ago.”
Linda looked around. Trees whispered in the faint breeze, and somewhere far off a bird chirped. “Everything here happened a long time ago,” she said flatly. “I’ve never been anywhere so empty.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not that empty.” Allan pointed to their left, and Linda saw a faint glimmer of white. “Lots to see, for those who are interested. Who care.”
“I care,” Linda muttered. “I care about getting the hell out of here and getting on with our holiday.”
“I know. You’ve made that clear. Only – well, we’re here now. Let’s just look around a bit more, okay? Please.”
“Fine. But you owe me, big time.”
Allan, having gained his point, said nothing, but hurried off in the direction of the blur of white they had seen. Linda, after a moment’s hesitation, followed.
As they got closer the shape revealed itself as a large building that had once, no doubt, been impressive, but was now in danger of collapsing in on itself. Two blank windows, like eyes, stared out from under a high roof, and what had once been an overhang running the length of the building’s front had had its supports give way and was now hanging limp against the wall. Beside it was another building in even more desperate shape, a tangle of trees and vines choking collapsed timbers, threatening to drag the whole structure into the ground. Allan whistled.
“This is great.” The camera was out again and he was snapping away. “I’m going to get some brilliant pictures.”
“Of what?”
Allan spared her a quick glance. “What d’you mean?”
“I mean what is it we’re looking at, exactly?”
“Oh. I see.” Allan considered the buildings, then looked at his plan of the park. “I think this one” – he pointed to the more intact of the two buildings – “was the Bumper Car ride, and the other one was the Fun House.”
“Some fun.” Linda looked at the battered building and shivered. “Looks like a good stiff breeze would knock it over.”
“Yeah, I’m lucky I got here before that happened.” Allan headed towards the Bumper Car ride. “I’m gonna take a look inside.”
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Linda didn’t really want to get any closer to it, but she followed anyway, picking her way through the weeds pushing their way up through the cracked ground.
“Only one way to find out,” said Allan, his voice muffled as he pushed his way through an opening where several boards had fallen, in to a section that was leaning – dangerously, Linda thought – to one side. “Oh, man, look at this!”
It took a few moments before Linda’s eyes adjusted to the gloom of the building, which was in stark contrast to the brassy brightness outside. The openings along the sides, which would once have been thronged with onlookers watching the happy mayhem within, were boarded up in places, and in others choked with trees, which stifled the sunlight trying to filter in from without. The floor was covered in dirt and leaves and splintered pieces of wood, and in one corner lay a heap of what looked like broken chairs. Running along the back, across from where they stood, was what had obviously once been a covered gallery: a few shafts of sunlight punched their way through holes in the roof, and cables dangled limp from overhead, the lights they had once supported long gone.
Allan was picking his way carefully across the floor, pausing every now and then to take a picture. “Jeez, I’d love to find some of the cars,” Linda heard him say. “Wonder what happened to them. Oh, hey, look at this!”
“What?” Linda had only moved a couple of feet away from where they had entered, and was reluctant to advance any further. The building looked anything but stable.
“There’s a hole in the floor here. Looks like someone cut through with a chainsaw. I can’t really see much . . . hang on a sec.” He fished around inside his bag and pulled out a flashlight, then shone it through the hole. “Nothing but a load of junk,” he said, disappointed. “Hey, what the . . .” He moved suddenly to his left, trying to angle the flashlight as if to see better, and there was a cracking sound from beneath his feet. He scrambled backward as Linda retreated to the side of the building.
“Allan, for heaven’s sake, come away from there. That floor’s probably rotted through. If it gives way you could kill yourself.”
“No, it’s okay, just something shifting. All right, all right,” – as Linda opened her mouth to protest – “I’m coming back. Nothing much more to see in here anyway.”
“What was down there?”
“I told you. A load of junk, dead leaves, that sort of thing.”
“I thought you saw something else.”
“No, just shadows, that’s all.” They were back outside, and Linda breathed a bit more freely now that they were on safe ground. “C’mon, I want to check out the Fun House.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Linda glanced at the dilapidated building beside them. “It makes that last one look like a prize home exhibit.”
Allan said nothing, but walked away around the front of the Fun House, past a rusting, peeling iron rail that led up a concrete slope to where the entrance had apparently been. There was a wire cage beside it half-obscured by trees, and Allan pointed to it.
“That would have been where the ticket guy sat, probably. Look, you can see the exit sign on the other side of it. Looks like they had another fire here.” Out came the camera. “I’m just going to walk round, see if I can get a better shot.” Before Linda could say anything, Allan disappeared around the corner.
Linda ran her eyes over the front of the building. The entrance looked almost passable, but the exit was covered with boards clumsily stacked against it. One was slightly askew, as if someone had tried to get in that way, and all showed signs of scorching.
Too bad the whole thing didn’t go up, thought Linda. Would’ve been an improvement.
There was a sound behind her, off in the trees, as of a branch snapping. She whirled round, peering into the undergrowth. Nothing moved. “Allan?” she called, rather faintly; then, more loudly, “Allan? Where are you?”
No answer. Damn, she hoped he hadn’t found a way in. The place was ready to collapse. “Allan!” she called, anger giving an edge to her voice. “Allan, come back here!”
Still nothing. She turned and looked again at the undergrowth, and, as she did so, caught out of the corner of her eye movement inside the wire cage by the Fun House entrance. She swung her head back towards it and could see, between the trees, a figure inside it, half-crouched down as if looking for something. Or trying to hide.
“Allan! Allan, this isn’t funny. It may have been a Fun House once, but that’s no reason to . . .”
“Who’re you talking to?”
Linda spun round. Allan had come up behind her, from the passage between the Fun House and the Bumper Car building. “Is there someone here?”
“No, I . . .” Linda looked back at the wire cage. The trees shifted in the wind, almost as if obliging her, and she could see that it was empty. “I thought there was someone in there, that you were playing a joke.”
“Not me. The only way to get in there is from inside the building, and I can’t find any way in that looks safe.” He sounded regretful. “Got some good pictures, though.”
“Oh, well, as long as you’ve got some good pictures then everything’s okay, isn’t it?”
“What’s wrong?” Allan sounded genuinely puzzled.
“Nothing. Nothing at all. I’m just getting tired of poking around old buildings that should’ve been pulled down years ago, that’s all. Like that abandoned factory two months ago, where I got that gash on my knee. Thought I was going to need stitches.”
“Well, you didn’t, did you?” pointed out Allan, in a reasonable tone that set Linda’s teeth on edge. “Okay, c’mon, let’s see what else we can find.”
“More abandoned buildings, probably. Thrilling. Let’s face it: you’ve seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all.”
“I guess.” Allan didn’t sound convinced. “But there’s more here than just empty buildings; lots of rides still on the site. One site I found said that there’s a Tumble Bug ride somewhere. There are only four in existence still.”
Linda stared at him. “You know, I’ve been trailing after you to places like this for three years now, but you never cease to amaze me. You’re thirty-two, for God’s sake, Allan. Shouldn’t you have grown out of this sort of thing? Going around looking at all this shit that no one except you and a handful of other people care about? Children’s rides! Why?”
“Because – well, because I like it, that’s why!” He shook his head. “What’s not to like? It’s all a part of our past, and it’s disappearing, and unless people like me find it, see it, photograph it, it’ll be as if it never existed. It’ll just be pictures in books that no one looks at.” He gestured at the expanse of greenery around them, the forlorn buildings behind them. “This used to be an amusement park. Not just that, it was the midway, the heart of the whole place. Can’t you picture it the way it would have been fifty years ago, with kids, families, music playing, the smell of fried onions, the sound of the rides? All those children, almost sick with excitement at the thought of a day at White Lake Park? All the happiness that was here once? Someone has to remember it, otherwise it might as well never have been.”
Linda started to say something, but was stopped by the look on Allan’s face. He looked like a big kid himself; in the car, on the drive out to the park, his face had worn the expression of a child anticipating a major treat. She sighed instead, and made a You win gesture with her hands. “I don’t want to be here all day, Allan, okay? It’s too hot, and this place gives me the creeps.”
“Yeah, what was it that spooked you so much back there?” Allan gestured at the Fun House.
“I told you. I thought I saw someone in that wire cage thing.” She recalled something else. “And before that I thought I heard someone in the bushes over there.” She pointed.
“Really?” Glad to be back on neutral territory, Allan took a few steps in that direction. “Over here?”
“Yeah. Look, it was probably just the wind or a squirrel or something. Forget it.”
“No, hang on a minute . . .” Allan moved away through the trees, and it did not take many steps before he appeared to be swallowed up by the foliage. Linda waited for a moment, staring intently at where he had vanished. Suddenly she heard a choked cry, followed by a short laugh. “Hey, Linda, come here. I found your intruder.”
“What? Allan, this isn’t funny.”
“No, honest.” He reappeared between the trees. “Come look.”
She followed him into the undergrowth, peering nervously around her. Allan motioned to a dense clump of maple saplings. “Come and see.” Gingerly she stepped forward, and parted the lower branches; then jumped backward with a screech.
A face was leering at her: livid and fierce, vivid reds and too-pale whites. It took a moment for her to register what it was, and when she did she turned on Allan in anger.
“You bastard! You knew I’d jump, that it’d scare me half to death. Jerk.”
It was a wooden sign, in the shape of a clown. Out of the garish red mouth came a speech balloon, inside which were the words YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO RIDE THIS RIDE. One
of the clown’s arms had obviously indicated the height requirement, but it had vanished, and only a jagged stump bleeding splinters remained.
Allan raised his arms in a would-be placating gesture. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would make you jump like that. Startled me, too, but look.” He pointed further into the trees, and Linda unwillingly looked in that direction, her heart still pounding. She could vaguely make out, in the undergrowth, metal shapes, trees growing through and around them.
“What is it?”
Allan had set off in the direction of the shapes. “I think it’s the – yeah, it’s the Flying Cages!” he called over his shoulder. “Man, I’ve never seen one of these rides. Read about them, though. Used to be in the touring carnivals that went round the county fairs and things, but you don’t see them anymore.”
When she got closer, Linda wondered why anyone had bothered in the first place. The ride seemed to consist of four large metal cages, each one originally a different colour, although the paint had faded and chipped away, leaving only a few traces on the metalwork. One of the cars still had remnants of pale blue cloth trailing from the sides, and Allan nodded.
“That would have been where the cages were padded,” he said. He went up to the nearest one and gave it a push. There was a harsh squealing noise and the cage began to move slightly, and Allan gave it another, harder push. It rocked back and forth for a few moments, the framework which supported it groaning in protest at the unexpected movement. After a few moments its movements stilled and it came to rest once more, and there was silence.
“Wow, it still works. This one, anyway.”
“Is that all it did? Swung back and forth?”
“I think so. Like I said, I’ve never actually seen one before.”
“Guess those really were simpler times.”
“Oh, c’mon, Linda. A lot of rides look pretty tame from the ground, but when you’re in ’em they’re terrifying. That whole loss-of-control thing. I mean, imagine being in one of these, it’s swinging back and forth, higher and higher, faster and faster, and there’s music playing, and you’re bouncing from side to side, trying not to lose your balance, watching the ground come at you, people screaming, yelling . . . it’s a real rush.”
“I’ll take your word for it. That kind of thing never appealed much to me. I like to keep my feet on the ground. Even when I was a kid I didn’t like to . . . hey, are you listening?”
Allan had turned his head suddenly, and was gazing back the way they had come. When Linda repeated her question he turned back to her with a start, as if only just remembering she were there.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, puzzled.
“What? I didn’t hear anything.”
“I heard – well, I thought I heard music.”
“Music?” Linda stared at him. “No, I didn’t hear any music. Maybe someone’s car stereo turned up, or music from a nearby house.”
“No.” Allan shook his head. “It almost sounded like . . . I don’t know, like old-fashioned calliope music.” When Linda looked puzzled, he said impatiently, “You know, like on a carousel. A merry-go-round.”
“Nope. Didn’t hear anything like that.” She gave a short laugh. “What a pair. I see things, you hear things. Maybe it’s time to leave.”
“No. Not yet. There’s too much more I want to see.”
Linda glanced at her watch, then at the sun overhead. “Okay, Allan. But not too much longer. And no more scares, right?”
“Right.”
They headed back the way they’d come, Linda carefully not looking at where she knew the clown stood. Once back in front of the Fun House they stopped, and Allan looked at his plan.
“This way, I think,” he said.
“You think? Where’re we going now?”
“Further along the midway.”
“Looking for your Stumble Bugs?”
“Tumble Bugs,” he said impatiently. “No, well, yes. I mean, I want to see them, obviously—”
“Obviously.”
“But there’s lots of stuff here I want to see. I just want to wander down the midway, see what we find.” And he set off, once more leaving Linda to trail behind.
They walked for thirty yards or so, Linda looking over her shoulder now and then to see where they’d come from. She wanted to be sure they knew how to get out again when Allan finally got tired and called it a day. She also couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were being followed, and she wondered if the woman at the house had tipped someone off that they were in there. She was glancing over her shoulder again – was that someone moving back behind a tree, just out of sight? – when Allan stopped dead and she stumbled against him. She was about to say something when he shushed her and pointed to their right.
“What is it?” she asked, any urge she might have had to say “Sorry” gone, but he merely made a shushing noise and pointed again. She looked in that direction, but even then it was a few moments before she realized what she was looking at.
“Ferris Wheel,” Allan whispered. “Wonderful!” And he was off, camera raised, leaving Linda to stand and stare.
It had been a Ferris Wheel, once, but now it was a shell of its former self. They were sideways on to it and she could see the outer rings which had once supported the cars, which were gone. Trees grew up and through the Wheel’s structure, and it looked like a giant child’s toy suspended in the branches, ready to break free and roll away in a heavy wind. She would not even have seen it had Allan not pointed it out, and Linda shivered, wondering what else was in the trees, then hurried to catch up to Allan, who was at the base of the Wheel, staring at it in admiration.
“This is incredible,” he said, turning to her, eyes aglow. “I had no idea there was so much of it left. Amazing.”
“Wonderful.” She gazed up through the branches to where the Wheel sat silently above them. “This place is like a graveyard. No, it’s like a morgue, full of dead bodies. Couldn’t someone have given them a decent burial, at least?”
Allan shrugged. “Probably cost too much. Cheaper to leave it here than break it up and haul it out.” He raised the camera again. “Just a few more shots.”
“I’ve heard that song before,” Linda muttered, but stood while he took a few more pictures, stopping every now and then to throw out some comment that she only half-heard. She glanced back the way they had come, and there it was again; that faint trace of movement at the corner of her eye, as of someone ducking out of sight. She shook her head. If someone had tipped off the police then the cops wouldn’t be hiding behind trees.
“Okay, let’s go.” Allan was beside her, his eyes sparkling, his face happier than she had seen it in some time. “I’ve got a real treat for you now. No” – he raised a finger to his lips – “I’m not going to tell you. You’ll see for yourself. We’re almost there. It wasn’t too far from the Ferris Wheel.”
They walked back to the cracked surface of what Linda supposed had been the main course of the midway, and had not gone far before Allan stopped. “There,” he said proudly, as if he had conjured it up out of mid-air in a spectacular piece of magic, and Linda saw the Coaster.
It had looked impressive and faintly menacing from the road, but now, close to, it was even more startling. They were standing near one end – the turnaround, Linda knew it was called – and could just make out the rest of the structure stretching out through the trees, dipping and twisting. Allan, of course, had his camera up, and Linda gazed at him for a moment, wondering how a person could be so enthusiastic about something like this. She had been wondering for three years now, and was beginning to think the question would never be answered; at least not in a way she would ever understand.
Her gaze fell to the uneven surface in front of them. The sun was at their back and she could see her own shadow, clear and sharp, on the ground in front of her. Her eyes flicked to the ground in front of Allan, and she noted that his own shadow was much less distinct. Some trick of the light, or the ground she thought, and was about to say something when she caught her breath with a hiss.
There was a third shadow stretched out in front of them.
It was clearly the head and shoulders of someone – a man, she thought – who appeared to be standing roughly equidistant between her and Allan, and slightly behind them. She turned her head so suddenly that she felt something pop between her shoulders.
There was no one there.
When she looked forward again, the shadow was gone.
She blinked and shook her head, her eyes darting from side to side. She had seen it, as clearly as she had seen their own shadows but it couldn’t have been there. She told herself that, firmly, as she followed Allan towards the Coaster, which seemed to emerge from the trees the closer they got to it, as if shaking itself off like a dog coming out of water. Allan was in such a fever of excitement that Linda was surprised he could keep the camera steady as he darted about, taking pictures from every angle.
“Oh, man, this is incredible. I had no idea it was in this good a state!” He looked up at the wooden struts which now rose above them, criss-crossing, supporting the track, which looked to be intact. “Amazing. Almost looks operational. Wouldn’t be surprised to see a car coming along the tracks.”
Linda knew that he was seeing a different Coaster to the one she was looking at; one without maples choking the tracks, or dead trees leaning drunkenly against the supports of the first turnaround, one where guard rails weren’t missing and footings weren’t rotting and sinking into the muddy earth. To Allan, she knew, it looked as it had in its heyday, a place of happiness and excitement and laughter, and for a moment she wished she could see it through his eyes. Before she could say anything, however, he was off again, heading towards a long, low building with an arched roof at the far end of the track, calling “Loading station!” over his shoulder as he went.
Linda picked her way through the trees, cursing as something caught at her skirt. It took her a few moments to work it free, and when she looked up Allan was gone. On the archway over the entrance she could make out the word COASTER, or at least what remained of it. Some of the letters had fallen off, and what was left was the word COST, with only shadows of the other letters marking where they had once stood.
She dropped her eyes, trying to see into the station, but all she could make out was a suggestion of railings, with a bench at one side. It was full of shadows, and she wished again that she could see it as Allan did.
She was suddenly aware of how exposed she must look, alone and vulnerable, and her eyes automatically raked the undergrowth around her, which seemed full of movement, although when her eyes fell directly on a spot there was nothing to be seen. She thought she saw someone move quickly behind a small outbuilding on the far side of the track, by the dips, and remembered her earlier impression of being followed. If there was someone else in the park, she definitely didn’t want to be there by herself, so even though she had no desire to go inside the station she trudged towards it and climbed the cracked ramp leading up from ground level.
Within it was cooler, and she could smell rotted leaves and damp earth and something else, something more pungent, less wholesome. She did not want to think about what it was. From outside came the sound of a voice, and her immediate thought was Allan, calling her; but after a moment she realized that it didn’t sound like Allan at all, certainly not him calling her, more like someone having a conversation. The contrast between the dimness inside and the sunshine outside meant she could see little beyond the station, and she made her way down the platform towards the sound of the voice, noting the rails still standing primly alongside the track, the faded yellow line on the concrete indicating where those waiting had had to stand, the brake levers standing at odd angles like thin tombstones.
Something skittered under one of the benches. A leaf, or maybe a mouse, she told herself, and hurried forward.
There was movement from outside the station, but when she emerged there was no one in sight. She stared, wondering where Allan could have got to. She looked down what she knew was the brake run, and could see more maples and buckeyes poking between the rails, but there was no sign of Allan. She was about to call out when she heard his voice behind her, down at the other end of the platform.
“What’re you doing down there? Come here! You’ve got to see this – it’s great!”
Linda had turned in the direction of his voice, and now whipped her head back round, gazing down the brake run once more. No one was there, of course, and yet . . . She shook her head, surprised to find herself on the verge of tears. She didn’t understand what was going on, and she wanted to run, bolt like an animal, back to the car, get the hell out of Dodge . . .
Allan called again. “You coming? I want to show you something. Hurry!”
She was on the verge of asking why she had to hurry. It wasn’t as if anything in the park was going anywhere. Instead she took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and marched determinedly down the centre of the platform, looking neither to left nor right, ignoring the whispers which started up outside the station as soon as she turned her back. Only trees, Linda; it’s only the trees.
Allan was standing on the stretch of track that left the station heading towards the lift hill. She had obviously missed seeing him on her initial walk past. The track curved sharply to the right and she could see, beyond Allan, what looked like a shed built across the track, curving with it. The open entranceway was choked with undergrowth and blocked by a fallen tree, and she could make out blackness beyond, but nothing more.
“Look at that!” Allan gestured to the shed. “This is really something special. The track is pretty basic – your ordinary out-and-back layout – but you don’t often see this.”
“What’s ‘this’?” asked Linda. “Why did someone build a shed over the track?”
“It’s not a shed, it’s a tunnel. Look,” – Allan pointed back towards the station – “the train would have left the station, started into the curve towards the lift hill, and then – wham! into a tunnel.” He peered at the opening. “Hard to tell what sort of doors there would have been. Probably crash doors, like in a dark ride.” He shook his head. “Can’t tell from here. Maybe the other side is better.” And without another word he was off, heading around the inside of the curve, leaving Linda trailing in his wake.
She caught up to him at the other end of the tunnel. To her right the lift hill ascended, a dead tree suspended across it, and to her left she could see the tunnel exit. A corrugated iron door stood across one side; the other gaped open, and for a moment Linda thought that something darted back into the shadows. This is crazy, she thought, you’re seeing things. Yet when Allan moved towards the opening she heard an edge of panic in her voice as she called out “Where are you going?”
“I want to look inside the tunnel, see how clear it is.” Linda cast her eyes along the structure, which looked more or less intact at either end but appeared badly damaged in the middle, where a tree had come down on the roof.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, Allan.” She didn’t move, couldn’t, from where she stood. “C’mon,” - this as he approached the entrance, shining his flashlight through the open side – “let’s go. We still have to find your Tumble Bugs, or whatever they’re called.”
“I don’t care about those.” Allan pushed through the open door, and she saw his figure swallowed up by the tunnel. She wanted to scream, but bit her lip and called out again “Allan! Please!”
“Oh, Linda, you’ve got to see this,” she heard him say. His voice sounded as if it was coming from far away. “Man, this is better than I could have imagined. There’s an old coaster car in here, in pretty good shape. This is just amaz—”
His voice stopped suddenly, like a needle jerked off a record. Linda waited for a moment, then called “Allan?” in a voice she barely recognized as her own. When there was no reply she called again, louder, but there was nothing except the sound of branches clattering against each other and, somewhere, a faint snatch of music that was snuffed out almost instantly.
She knew she had to go look, knew that she had to go up to the tunnel entrance and see what had happened – he’d fallen, something had hit him, he’d collapsed – but the mouth of the tunnel seemed . . . busy, somehow, as if there were too many shadows there. She gave a thin scream, like an animal in a trap. Then, as the shadows seemed to thicken and grow darker she turned, turned and ran, like a frightened child, heedless, uncaring, back the way they had come, her bag banging against her side with each step, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her ears filled with sounds she did not want to identify, shadows running alongside her, thin shapes clutching at her legs, until she was somehow -miraculously – back at the door in the fence, shouldering her way through, careless of how she might look to anyone watching, running up to the house, pounding on the door, and only then, it seemed, pausing for a moment to think about what had happened, what had to be done . . .
The door swung inward and the woman they had spoken with earlier stood framed inside the opening. She looked at Linda; then her eyes travelled past her, and Linda, even in her confusion, saw a look of pain mixed with sadness settle in her face. She looked back at Linda.
“My boyfriend,” Linda gasped, trying to form her thoughts into something coherent, something that would make sense. “My boyfriend – he’s in there, in the park, something’s happened to him . . .”
“I know.” The voice was quiet, but there was sorrow contained within it.
“What do you mean, you know? How can you know?”
“I do. We all do.”
Linda took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. “I need to use your phone, call the police, the ambulance, someone. I think he might be hurt.”
“No, he’s not hurt.”
“How do you know?” Linda almost screamed. “You weren’t there. He was inside that tunnel, by the Coaster; some of it had collapsed, he might be lying there injured, I need to get help.”
“No one can help.” The woman’s eyes flicked over Linda’s shoulder again, towards the park. “There’s nothing anyone can do. Believe me.”
“But you don’t understand,” begged Linda, her voice harsh. “He’s in there, he could be hurt, I need to do something.”
“There’s nothing you can do. He’ll come out if he wants to. Some of them do. You can wait here with us, if you like.”
Linda tried to make sense of what she was hearing. “What do you mean, some of them do? Some of who? And who do you mean by ‘us’?”
The woman half-turned her head, towards the hallway behind her. “Us,” she said simply.
Linda looked over the woman’s shoulder, and saw that there were others behind her; women, all, half-a-dozen or so. One or two looked to be the same age as the woman in the doorway, but the others were older, middle-aged at least, or perhaps they only looked so. It was difficult to tell. All were plainly dressed, in clothing that ranged from threadbare to out-of-date. Apart from that, their only commonality was a look that Linda could only think of as resigned sadness. She turned back to the woman in the doorway.
“Who are you?” she asked, in a voice that sounded as if it came from many miles away. “Why are you here?”
“We’re waiting,” the woman said simply. “Some of us have been waiting a long time.” She nodded towards the cars parked in the lane beside the house. “Some of us can’t leave. So we wait. What else can we do?”
Linda shivered. Her mind seemed to be retreating from her body, but she heard herself say, “So they come back – sometimes?”
“Yes. But it can be a long time, if it happens.” The woman looked at Linda, her gaze steady. “You have to be prepared to wait. Are you prepared?”
Linda took a deep breath and drew herself upright. As she did so her bag shifted against her hip, and she heard the rattle of the car keys from deep inside it. An image of Allan’s face as she had seen it at the Coaster flashed before her: excited, eager, happy, in a way that she had seldom seen it.
“I don’t know,” she replied finally. “Can I think about it for a minute?”
“Yes, of course. We have all the time in the world.”
There was nothing more to be said. The door closed.
All the time in the world.
But it would not take her that long to decide.