No Diggity

Child endangerment. Psychological trauma.

It was the smell that brought him back. A blending of scents, ingrained deep in his salivating senses. Popcorn butter. Fried dough with cinnamon. Hot dogs, seared and juicy on rotisserie. The sharp sting of pickles and onions swimming in vast vats of peppercorn brine. Spilled lemonade. Burnt sugar. And hot garbage smooshed into a thousand rubber soles.

But the fryers were empty. The grills were cold. Dead leaves skittered over cracked pavement, swirling, settling. Still.

In his memory, this place was cramped, frenzied. Huge, primary-bright machines loomed in pendulous splendor over the narrow lanes. Sharp elbows and sticky fingers threw chaotic shapes in the press and surge of color and sound. In his mind, every other person had been squeezing the throat of a huge stuffed toy, the off-brand mark of arcade success. Rationally, he knew, they could not have been that common. No one he knew had ever won one.

Now, vast expanses stretched between the plywood shies, padlocked and zip-tied into submission. Skeletal rides slouched above the awnings, indifferent landmarks in a lead grey sky. It would take too long to skirt the perimeter, so he cut through the labyrinth of asphalt avenues. The poster-plastered barriers quickly swallowed up the streets.

He was all alone in there.

He hoped.

Stickers of the cartoon mascots were peeling and fading from every shade. He tried to remember their names. The cat was Kaboodle. Higgelty was the pig. Somewhere, there were pictures of him stiffly accepting hugs from each of the felt-faced animals.

Somewhere, there were other pictures.

It wasn't that he wanted to be there. There was no irresistible urge compelling him to rake away the autumn leaves of self-delusion and dig into the dirt and worms of his past. He didn't plan out an Everest expedition to the bleakest peak of his subconscious. He'd just been driving while his mind was elsewhere, and went left when he should have gone right. Now that he was here, he didn't seem to have the option of being anywhere else.

He walked on past the sound stage, the skee ball range, the hook-a-duck (the duck was Quackerjack). Under a wide, white awning, a gross of bone-dry fishbowls were collecting dust. He noticed, vaguely, that he hadn't seen so much as a mosquito here, let alone a squirrel or rat. When he was little, the hopping sparrows begging for bits of french fry had been as entertaining as the paid performers. There were no sparrows anymore.

The bird had been called Flyaway. He thought it was a lark.

In the center of the maze was a grand carousel, three steeds deep, plastered with mold-spackled mirrors and flaking gold paint. Not only horses, but tigers and peacocks and midget giraffes all galloped in the same tight circle. He thought he'd ridden on a kangaroo, and took a lap to locate it, when--

There's something there!

Did something move?

He waited, breath baited, staring through the shadowy shapes. Was it just a reflection? A memory? He didn't dare turn his back on the ramshackle pack as he carefully edged away.

As his heart resigned itself to the prison of his chest, he glanced up at the overcast sky. The dark clouds drained all the color from the rusting rails of the Mad Mouse (there was no mouse mascot). He wasn't sure he was headed in the right direction, but he kept going, every now and then glancing over his shoulder, and finding nothing there. Part of him wanted to turn back now, forget his intentions, and bury it all in a watery grave of cheap gin and denial.

The rest of him knew it was too late for that. The striped sign was up ahead.

There it was.

Painted on boards thirty feet high, a grinning black cat (Kaboodle) held its mouth open wide, a bright red tongue on the concrete steps leading up to the haunted house entrance. Sitting canter on the rails, half-eaten with rust, was the ghost train. It seemed darker as he trudged up the stairs.

What was supposed to happen? People climbed down into the little trolley train, clutching their mom or their boyfriend, squeezed tight together as the cars rattled down the rails. Inside the house, puppets and mannequins flew out on wires and chemical smoke, colored gels flapping over floodlights. What was supposed to happen was a couple quick scares, a little laugh over a rabbiting (Hippity) heart. Pay extra for a novelty picture.

What actually happened...

What actually happened?

He stepped down off the platform, onto the tracks.

In the beam of his flashlight, inching forward with steady steps, it really didn't seem all that scary. There was the ghost bride, the ghost clown, the ghost...ghost. He remembered his little kid pulse at a mile a minute, nerves on fire, terrors leaping out from every shade. He'd clutched tight to the hand that led him deeper into the dark.

Was that a sound?

He didn't remember much about what happened, but he remembered what happened after. He'd emerged from the plywood exit, eyes fixed to the ground. Someone bought him an ice cream, and it dripped and puddled over numb fingers. Stuck in sticky tufts to his stuffed toy prize.

He didn't eat for three days. Didn't speak for six or seven; he wasn't sure. Nobody else seemed to notice. Certainly no one wrote it down.

That was a sound.

He stepped up off the tracks, keeping his back to the wall. The beam of his flashlight rolled over the cheap plastic and paper mache. He held his breath, blood rushing in his ears, waiting. His eyes flicked toward the exit, not so far, outlining the silver sky. Seven strides, maybe. He took the first step.

One.

He listened, barely breathing. Couldn't hear a thing.

Two.

He swept the ground with his flashlight beam. The only eyes looking back at him were dusted glass.

Three.

This was stupid. There was no one else here. No web, no spider. No ghosts. Nothing in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on. Not only was nothing waiting to pounce on him from the shadows, but there was no secret, magical answer that would finally make it all make sense. No dragon. No treasure. Just faded paint.

There was nothing there.

In a way, wasn't that what he'd been afraid of?

When his eyes flicked back toward the exit, something moved.

A patch of painted blackness lurched into the frame. It unfurled slowly, limb by detangling limb, bulbous head lolling upright, stretching to an impossible height.

He wanted to run, he wanted to leave, hot sweat peeling from his electric skin, eyes wide, staring. The memory shot through him, sick and twisted as a poisonous knife.

The dog.

It was the dog.

Long, felt-fuzzed arms stretched toward him, reaching for a hug.