Creaking Manor

“Isn’t there supposed to be narration at this part?”

The indoor queue was completely empty. A relatively long stretch of hallways and circular rooms, ornately decorated with portraits of mysterious figures and busts of creepy old people. Normally, this is where you would wait two or three hours before you finally got to sit down in a cart.

“Yeah…” Conrad listlessly responded to Katie. “I think so. That's weird.”

“Maybe they didn’t bother turning it on because there’s so few people today?”

“That doesn’t sound very professional.” Frankie argued. “I doubt it.”

“I wonder…”

Finally, they crossed an open steel door. The heavy thing was seemingly locked into place, out of everyone’s way just before the loading area. Frankie wondered why it was there at all… maybe just some decoration. It didn’t seem to move, despite having hinges. At the very least, nobody who put it here intended for it to actually operate.

They weren’t alone in the wide starting room. Three inpatient guests stood by an empty track, checking their phones and looking down the ride’s dark opening tunnel to see where the cart had gone.

“Someone can’t possibly still be on it. It would’ve come back by now.”

“I’m sorry?”

The uniformed cop sneered at the strange lady in red. She said nothing as his annoyance passed right through her.

“Oh!” The final tourist, a young blonde man, blinked. “Hey, more members for the wait-for-the-ride club.”

The cop and the lady turned to the three of them. Without the ambient horror music that was intended to play at this part, it was more awkward than anything. Frankie shyly waved, trying not to look the cop in the eye. She hoped he wasn’t on her case.

“I’m Katie!” Her jubilant sister announced to the whole gang. “Nice to meet you all! I’ve never been on this ride before, so I don’t know how it works!”

“How does it work?” The woman asked, gripping the cardigan that wasn’t a shade deeper or lighter than her identical dress.

“That’s Mary.” The blonde kid explained. He was only about their age, but his tone was more confident than anyone else in this room, maybe barring Katie on a good day. “We can’t tell if she’s honestly like this or just messing with us. I say don’t think too hard about it.”

“Why not?” Mary asked innocently, her empty eyes gazing through the boy before they began to narrow in some uninterpretable emotion. She always placed special emphasis on the last syllable, each time the utterance of which sending a spark of confused infuriation up the police officer’s spine. She sounded so earnest.

“Good greif…” the cop sighed, making a sweat rag with his hand. “I’ve had to deal with these two wackos for the past half an hour. I hope you three ain’t any worse.”

“We won’t be, sir.” Conrad affirmed.

“Well, uh… good then.” The perturbed officer responded out of etiquette. “Name’s Frank, by the way. And you there, young lady?”

Frankie realized they were talking about her. She shook, composing herself before her introduction.

“I’m… Sara.” She let out. With her body language, the lie should’ve been pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain. But she looked so nervous already that everyone in the room other than Conrad pretty much bought it. Of course, Katie didn’t get at first why she was hiding her identity until she remembered the CEO they beat up not half a day ago.

“Nice to meet you, Sara.” The blonde made his best attempt to brush away the awkwardness. “Nice to meet all three of you. I didn’t mention it, but my name’s Jack. If the ride shows up sometime this millennium, I hope I’ll get to have a pretty spooky time with all of you.”

“I’m Mary.” Mary insisted.