Terror

The dancing ghosts of this ungodly ride were no simple Pepper’s Box trick. Approaching the door behind which Katie still cried out from, Frank phased through these holographic figures on his determined way to save the girl.

“Frankie? Where’s- who are you?” Katie shuddered from inside the four tiny walls, hearing the man’s heavy footsteps. “You’re the killer… you’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

“Calm down! It’s me, Frank.” He tried the knob, but it was stuck. “What’s going on in there? Why’d you leave the group?”

“I went to look for Mary- I- got scared, I… ran inside here for safety and then the door locked…”

Frank reached for his missing gun for the second time as an easy way to blow the lock open. Seemed like fate hadn’t been so kind to him on this occasion.

“Shit… just relax, I’ll get you out of there!”

Hearing him kick and crash against the door from outside, Katie hugged her shoulders inside the cramped interior tightly. With each loud bang she jumped, fearing he’d break right through the obstacle and into her. But the door seemed to be holding up pretty well.

“Don’t give up!” She suddenly encouraged the cop, doing her best to motivate him so they could both get out of this. It certainly seemed effective.

“Don’t- sweat it!” By the sound of it he kicked again, harder than before, following his strike with another, even stronger blow. Before long he was making so much noise and using so much energy she couldn’t imagine a reason in the world why he wouldn’t be able to break down that door.

But then she heard another noise- outside, from above. A creaking noise.

A breaking noise.

“Huh? F-Frank-!”

He didn’t hear her warning.

In the loudest crash yet, his kicking stopped. Out of nowhere, when Katie looked down to see her quivering legs, red goo soaked through the bottom of the door, and she screamed.

With Conrad following far behind, carrying Jack’s body and trying to keep his eyes on the girl ahead, Frankie made a mad dash towards her sister. Just seconds ago, she’d heard something that certainly wasn’t a normal part of the ride. Like a car crash, it was loud, abrupt, and metal.

Rounding one of the earlier corners they’d passed by, she saw it:

In a grisly mess, Frank was pinned to the ground by a now-broken projector system. He wasn’t moving, and in fact, he showed no signs of life at all. The closer she got, the worse it became. Soon she saw he hadn’t even had a chance.

Conrad appeared on the scene, finally witnessing the new body. Throwing up on the tracks, he only barely managed to keep this first held in his arms. This was absolutely going to go down as the worst night of his and likely their lives, he thought, if they all made it out alive.

Frankie pushed the disturbing view aside and aimed the late officer’s firearm at the doorknob securing Katie. Exhausted from running yet restless without answers, she squeezed the trigger and felt the weapon’s intense power kick back as she blew the thing open, dropping a gold casing on the ground. Swinging open the hinge as far as it could go before it was blocked by Frank’s corpse, she tucked the gun in her shorts and let her sister fall out onto her, the two meeting in a desperate hug.

“Don’t open your eyes.” Frankie told her during the embrace. “It’s Berrytown again.”

“Mhm.” The elder sibling said with tears below her shut lids, gripping onto her brave little sister.

“Hey…” Conrad was taken aback, the only one looking at who’d just come to join them as the girls held each other.

Mary turned up at last, a vacant yet now slightly curious air to her still gaze. She didn’t notice the body at first, or didn’t seem to, so her returning greeting was fairly casual.

“Hello? …Can you hear me?”

Well, it would’ve been if it didn’t sound so creepy.