D A Novel (George Right) - By George Right Page 0,57
stenciled black inscription "Employees only" across the door, a trailer with lowered window blinds nearby, a long truck next to it (probably one of those which carried the equipment), one more behind it... This part of the grounds overgrew with rigid bushes which were cut only partially; toilet booths were, of course, on the cleared patch, but right behind them the thickets shot up above human height. To the left of the booths, a recently embedded wooden post stuck out, which, however, had neither a lamp nor a loud-speaker. In the grass under Mike's feet a plastic bottle unpleasantly crackled–apparently it had lain here for years. Slightly farther a yellowish scrap of an old newspaper could be seen... But where was Jane?!
"Mike!"
He startled and looked about. The girl appeared from behind the booths.
"Good that you came. I knew that we hadn't visited everything here yet!" she stated with a happy look.
"Yeah, exactly, we hadn't visited the toilet," Mike grinned.
"Forget the toilet! Come here.”
The young man took several steps, bypassing toilets at the left, and saw behind them a narrow pass which led somewhere into the thickets. But Jane pointed to the post. Now Mike made out a small sign hanging on it. On a plywood sheet a thick black contour of an arrow was drawn, and inside it it was written in deliberately sloppy red letters: "CAVE of HORROR" Below the arrow was a very naturalistic print of a blood-stained palm. The arrow pointed directly to the pass.
"One more attraction? Here?" Mike skeptically looked at the narrow path between prickly bushes. Usually such paths lead, at best, to a garbage dump.
“Yes. Let's go!" she impatiently grasped his hand and pulled him along.
"What for?" Mike resisted. "Like, you've never seen anything similar before. They'll just ride you in a car through a shed filled by plastic skeletons and vampire dummies, flashing red lights and howling loudspeakers... it seems to me, such a primitive display doesn't affect even children anymore. In the movies all that looks much more plausible.”
"Well, now that we're here, shouldn't we look? Maybe it has some good special effects!" Jane was quite decided about it and the young man, having sighed, followed his girlfriend.
As far as Mike understood, the surrounding fence should have been very close, but the path appeared longer than he expected–for some reason it was wedged through the interlacing prickly branches in a very winding way. But then, at last, bushes parted–and the couple indeed saw a chain link fence. Behind it, the same bushes densely grew, too. But on the inner side a wide spot was cleared, and there stood one more building.
It looked like all of them in any carnival. A long shed decorated with paper-mache stones in an effort to make it look like a cave; the forward wall was covered with garish images of corpses, skulls, bats and freaks with blood-stained hatchets. Above this all–the attraction's name in convex red letters, stylized to blood streaks and obviously highlighted from within in the evening. Below–the rails on which cars enter the "cave" at the left and exit it from the right.
There were only two cars and they were just preparing for departure; the forward one was occupied by a mother with a boy about eleven, who surely was a big fan of horror movies and the initiator of the ride (the woman herself had a displeased look); in the back car a single young guy, swarthy, with long black hair, was taking a seat. The attraction worker–thin, with a loppy dark mustache, dressed in an old-fashioned black suit–a living image of a provincial coffin maker from an old movie–was waiting, with his hand on a knife switch, until the last passenger sat down.
"Wait!" Jane shouted, quickening her pace. "Wait for us! " The cars were four-seater so there still was room for them.
The "coffin maker" raised his head and looked at her and Mike; the girl, approaching, stretched to him a ticket bought at the cash booth which granted the right to ride all attractions in the carnival during this day. But he only shook his head:
"A separate ticket is required for us, miss.”
"Separate? What the hell? We paid for everything..." Jane began to argue, but the worker mildly interrupted her:
"Those are the rules, miss. There are some formalities. You have to sign a paper," he smiled an apologetic mournful smile, clearly showing that personally he, of course, considered all this as nonsense, but this was the will of his bosses. Mike