Tabula Rasa(6)

“I’ll show you the castle ride. It’s the only one that works.”

Right. Because of the solar panels. Everything else in the park was dead, except for the scurrying creatures that had made the husks of rides into dens and nests. I shuddered at that thought, unsure I wanted to explore too deeply even in daylight.

When we reached the entrance to the ride, Trevor flipped a switch. The lights came on, illuminating wooden doors that ostensibly led into the castle ride. A carriage with cracking and peeling gold paint lurched forward and stopped in front of us. After about half a minute, it moved on and pushed its way through blue wooden doors, beyond which played the creepy music that went with the ride. It was made all the more unnerving by the fact that it didn’t play quite right as if the sound came from a record that spun on a warped turntable.

A second creaking carriage emerged from the same darkness the first one had.

“They’re on a timer,” Trevor said. “It keeps everything evenly spaced while giving the tourists time to get on or off the ride.” He spoke as if the park was still in operation, as if a swarm of people would be forming a line to ride this monstrosity at any moment. He held out a hand to me. “My Lady.”

“I don’t know if I want to...” The whole thing just felt f*cked up to me. This isolated half broken down ride that time and the world forgot out in what felt like the middle of nowhere. I felt as if getting in that carriage would edge out the last bits of sanity contained in the universe.

“Come on. It’s not like it’s a run-down roller coaster. It’s perfectly safe. I’ll protect you.”

It wasn’t worth fighting over. I tried to remember what I’d decided about just trying to get along with him and took his hand and got into the carriage. I was barely inside when it pitched forward sending my chicken nuggets rattling around in my stomach.

The music was even more disturbing inside the ride. It was a song about a princess who had been captured and locked inside a castle tower (why did we have to be staying in the tower?) by an evil king who wanted to marry her. But she didn’t love him.

At some point in the story/song, there was a witch and some evil magic. Because how could a fairy tale even work without a witch and some evil magic? That part of the story seemed superfluous. The king was villain enough. There was no real need to add any magic, but the flashes and noises probably appealed to the children the ride was intended for—unless it gave them the awful nightmares I was sure it would give me.

Much of the story was the princess crying and hoping some prince she actually liked would come rescue her. The ride was a visual of the contents of the song. It really shouldn’t have taken an apocalypse to shut this place down.

The whole thing would have been better without the song. Maybe they could have just played some violins or piano without lyrics instead.

As our carriage moved deeper into the bowels of the ride, I closed my eyes against the eerie animatronic people and the wooden way they moved. It didn’t take long for rides like this to fall apart if unattended, unused, and uncared for. A few of the moving characters’ eyes were popping out. I imagined without the air conditioning constantly running, the humidity had just squeezed them right out.

Here or there an arm had fallen off. It was macabre. And I swear one of them looked right at me. Yeah, this was super fun.

I looked over to find Trevor watching my reactions. “You thought this was a hoot the first time we were on it,” he said.

I shrugged noncommittally, waiting for it to be over.

Finally, the carriage went through a second set of wooden doors. Right before it did, an animatronic court jester jumped out, waved, and laughed like a maniac, asking us to come back soon. Why on earth would we do that? I think my heart stopped for a second when the jester jumped out.

When our carriage came to a stop, I couldn’t get out of it fast enough. Trevor followed me and shut the ride off.

“I’m sorry, I thought you’d think it was funny. I thought it would lighten things a bit.” He flipped the switch. The lights faded off, and the music ground down into silence.

I wondered about the personal hell of the operator who had to listen to the front end of the song as well as the back end of the song as both sets of doors opened over and over for hours on end. And that creepy court jester. There wouldn’t be enough money in the world for me to take that job.

“It’s late. We should probably head back upstairs for the night. You can explore the rest of the park tomorrow. You need to exercise and keep your strength up.”

I bit my tongue to keep from blurting out the truth about how strange I felt. Had he noticed?

I wanted nothing more than to get out of this dead theme park, but he was right on the practicality of staying. There was clean water here, and it seemed to be a good store of food, and electricity with two large fireplaces to keep warm and plenty of wood to chop down. There were beds and linens. It was survivable. Whereas, we had no idea what awaited us on the outside beyond this tangled oasis.

As we made our way to the tower, I couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid ride and the even stupider story. I couldn’t shake how much I felt like that princess in the tower, and I knew in a way I can’t explain that there were things about our relationship Trevor was keeping from me.

There was a sofa in the tower suite, but only the one bed. It was a room meant for a couple, not a couple and a bunch of kids. Maybe it was the honeymoon suite.