It all started off so harmless. Chris and I had taken our seats in the corner of the cafeteria. It was one of the more serene locales but in high school that wasn’t saying much.
“Nick fucked up his part so badly, I was pinching myself to not laugh.”
“I know.” Chris interjected, “He had like, 3 lines to remember. I ask him if he memorized them before we start and he says ‘yeah’. 5 seconds in he’s reading off our script, dude’s a bum!”
I doubled over.
“I’m never working with him again, I swear to god.”
Anton took his seat next to Chris cross legged, coke in his left as always. You know, I’ve never once seen him eat lunch ever. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing him eat at all.
“Watcha talking about?”
“Just my bird brained partner Nick, he…dude, what’s up with your eyes!? Did you get any sleep last night?”
I peered up from my book. He looked like a sith lord.
“Oh that?” he said with a coy smirk. He took another infuriatingly long sip before speaking.
“While you LOSERS were fast asleep, I and a select few other elites were having a blast at this town’s top secret amusement park.”
“What.” I sat up straight. “What the hell are you talking about? We live bumfuck nowhere.”
“Yeah, and if there was a park, we definitely would’ve caught wind before YOU.”
“That.” I said pointing to Chris.
Anton scoffed.
“Obviously you two don’t know what a secret is. It’s just one of those things, you’re in the know or you’re not. You guys simply weren’t elite enough is all. It’s sad really.”
Chris and I exchanged glances, our bullshit meters were off the charts. Anton picked up on our comms. “What? You don’t believe me?”
Anton Shaw lies like a duck swims. For years he’d fib to dodge a good grounding, or a trip to the principal’s office. He’d lie so much that he’d habitually slip them in everyday conversations, even with us. It was pathological.
“Wow,” he said, leaning back, “I don’t believe it, I’m your friend and you guys don’t even trust me?” he said, splitting his gaze between us. I rolled my eyes. “Why do I even tell you these things?”
“You know it’d be easier to believe you if you had any proof.’”
“Right, why don’t you bring us there after school?”
“Uh, well I can’t show you guys now.” he stammered.
“Why not?”
He took a hard sip. “It only appears on weekends.” he mumbled.
Chris laughed. “How convenient.”
“What do you mean ‘appears,’ how does an amusement park just appear? Does it disappear?”
“Jeez, I don’t know, I’ve only been there twice! Honest to god.” he said, hand over heart.
I heard enough, the next class was gonna start soon so I began packing my things when Anton made a tantalizing offer.
“Look, I’ll take you both to the park this Saturday, and if it’s not there I’ll split half of my savings with you two.”
The other thing about Anton, he came from big money. His dad’s a business exec working abroad and his mom’s an attorney. The allowance was huge and he used it on bets. Oddly enough, gambling was one of the only times he was ever responsible. He’d own up to the consequences, win or lose.
“Bet?” Chris said.
“Bet. And when I show you guys it’s real, you’ll have to do all my homework for the rest of the school year.”
His story was so obviously bull that there was no way in hell we’d lose, it was free money.
The next few days blew by like a bullet, the anticipation mounting exponentially with each sunrise.
We were to meet at the red and yellow park by the woods at 9:55. Sneaking out would be challenging, but I had my ways. The morning of, I moved my bike from outside of the garage to the backyard, and unlocked the wooden door leading to it. At night I played up being tired and went straight to my room so mom and dad would think I was asleep. I locked the door for good measure. By 9:50 I scrambled out the window, grabbed my bike from the backyard and I was off. I arrived a minute in advance to find Anton resting on the swings.
“You came early.”
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” I replied, rolling my bike over to the racks.
“Clearly. So how’d your great escape go.”
“Everything went off smooth as hell. Getting back in is the hard part. Gotta be real quiet.”
“You’re telling me?”
“Right Houdini, you’ve done this before.”
I locked up my bike and hopped on the swing, swaying back and forth waiting on Chris.
And minutes later we heard the pitter patter of feet on the sidewalk.
“You made it,” I said.
“You’re late! Thought you chickened out.” Anton mocked as he rose to his feet.
“No shit!” Chris huffed in between pants as he made his way over to us.
“I thought my grandma would never fall asleep.”
“Let’s go.” Anton interrupted, he took off into the woods and we headed in after trying not to lose him.
“God damn he’s fast!” Said Chris struggling to keep up, “Hey slow down!”
“Stop talking, just run!” I shouted back at him. I counted up to 6 or 7 minutes of travel before Anton started to slow down. Soon after, I found out why. I could see lights in the distance, hear the faint hum of music.
“No way.” Chris huffed.
Closer and closer we drew to the midnight ruckus as the colors and lights started to take form.
A giant wall coloured with red and white vertical stripes. The only visible break being the clown-faced gate. Past its open maw sat a booth, and at it sat an elderly man with a large silver mustache and bushy white eyebrows eclipsing his eyes.
“I told you it’s real! You know what this means? I don’t owe you a dime!”
We were awestruck all the way up to the booth where the old man handed us velcro watches. “Strap up and keep your eyes on the watch at all times. Before they hit zero you must vacate the premises. Is that understood,” he said.
We examined the watches, it was circular, ghost white, and the lit up numbers were a bright crimson. 01:54:53, and counting down. “Yes sir!” said Anton.
“Good, may you have a wonderful night!” he spoke, smiling.
“Wait, that’s it? We just put on the watches and we can just head in?” Chris inquired.
“Of course.” the man replied.
“We don’t have to pay? No tickets, nothing? Free of charge?”
The man laughed, “Free of charge.” he said with his hand over his heart.
“No way.”
Anton got tired of our disbelief and yanked us in.
“Boo hooo! It’s FREE! Get over it, let’s have some fun already!”
We couldn’t argue with that. Anton ferried us down the cobbled path.
Where do I even start? There was a roller coaster of course, a boat swing, a bounce house, a house of mirrors, a basketball court, a ferris wheel, bumper cars, it even had one of those slingshots that launched you into the sky. There was an old fashioned retro arcade with games like punch-out, super mario, Contra, space invaders. It had self-serve food stands where you could get cotton candy, popcorn, etc. It had everything you’d possibly expect all crammed into a square mile.
We couldn’t fit it all in 2 measly hours, and trust me when I say we tried. There was 50% of the park left over, but we were too gassed. The disbelief, euphoria and all the running around finally caught up with us, so we settled down at a small lounge area with a little over a dozen tables.
“My god, how the fuck did you find this place Anton?”
“Yeah this is incredible dude”
“I told you I got sources didn’t I?”
We rolled our eyes.
“Hey! Moral of the story is never doubt me ever again. Oh and I wasn’t joking when I said you guys gotta do my homework.”
“Uhhg, thought you forgot about that.”
Anton chuckled, “I don’t forget debts.”
“Whatever man, all I know is this place is cool as fuck, the homework’s easy anyway.”
“Well, look at the time,” I said, staring at the watch.
“Oh shit, we got to go.”
“Damn, blew through those two hours like nothing.”
“So you guys wanna meet up at the same time tomorrow?”
“Definitely.” I said.
“Why not.” Chris added.
And so began our visits under cover of night. It was a blessed era. I’ll never forget how the frequent peaks on the roller coaster led to one 60 meters high then whipped you into a dark abyss. How at the very top of the ferris wheel we were able to appreciate the forest’s beauty like never before. How Chris once threw up his late dinner on the super spinner. The head aches from our bouts in the bumper cars. Even after we did Anton’s homework we still owed him a debt for sharing it with us. For a long time it was all I thought about. I tried searching for it Monday to Friday but sure enough there was nothing, not even a clearing. it only came at 10 PM on weekends. As the days passed the rumors spread around the school slowly but surely. Attendance grew steadily, and with it, the waiting times, allowing us less and less rides per visit but such is life.
Then came the break in our routine. Chris had gone on vacation to a summer cottage with his grandparents the whole week, and it was the first time Anton and I had visited the park without him. We’d spent a majority of the day gaming in the arcade, when my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I just declined the call. But then It rang again right after.
“Dude, who is that?” Asked Anton.
“I don’t know some stupid scammer or something, unknown number.”
“Well put it on airplane mode, it’s distracting me,’’ he said, blowing up the space invaders. It wasn’t long before he got obliterated and the game over title screen flaunted itself in his face. He grumbled. “Uhhg, this game’s goofy, let’s go.”
I didn’t argue, my eyes were getting tired of staring at screens anyways. We went for a ride on the roller coaster twice. We had time for one last stop; the criminally underrated High Striker which was quickly becoming a favorite of mine.
Anton brought it up and over. He swung, slamming the wooden hammer head onto the padded pressure sensor, but he hit at a bad angle. It slipped off, lighting up a quarter of the machine.
“A swing and a miss!” I said enthusiastically
“Yeah? Alright Thor, show me how it’s done.”
I grabbed it from him
Then I banged out a 70 out of 100.
“Only a 70?”
“I know you’re not talking captain quarter, I’m just warming up.”
Bang.
“So remember when I asked you where the park goes that one time?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
I paused, then exhaled sharply “Nevermind, it’s nothing.” I said, biting back a smile.
“What is it?”
“Forget it it’s a stupid idea.”
The power of broken statements, I read about it in a book. Fractions of a thought. manipulating human drive to piece together info, yada yada yada. I wanted to use it to draw out curiosity in my proposal.
“Nonono, what is it?”
“Well, this place is huge, there’s literal tonnes of stuff everywhere. Check out what you’re sitting on.”
I said stomping on the ground. “It’s stone, look around us, how can people possibly disassemble all of this? Where would they bring everything? Don’t you wanna know, aren’t you the least bit curious?”
“I mean, not really.”
“Oh come on, what would they use to move all the materials? We’re in the middle of the woods, there are no roads for trucks, how could they just pack up and leave?”
“Look dude, I appreciate things for WHAT they are, I don’t need to know about the HOW’s. Speaking of what things are, it’s just about time to leave.” he said, flashing his watch as he rose to his feet.
“Cool. I’m not going anywhere.” I said.
Bang!
“Huh?”
“I’m staying. I wanna see how all this ‘disappears’, and you’re gonna join me.”
“What? Why would I-”
Bang!
“The real question is why wouldn’t you, considering the fact you’d miss out on uncovering their methods.” Good old fear of missing out.
“Listen, I’m not you, okay, I can live without knowing.”
“Sure you could, but why willingly stay in the dark? You got nothing better to do.”
“Pfft.”
“Why not have a stakeout? There’s literally no reason not to.”
“Okay, A) I could name several better things to do.”
“Name three.”
“Sleep, eat, shit”
I rolled my eyes
“B) there’s literally no reason not to? Bullshit! we could get banned, we could ruin this one great thing for ourselves.”
“Wrong, we could get banned if, and only if, they catch us, and they know it’s us.”
Anton cocked his head back “Oh my god bro…”
“You’re not scared of getting caught or something are you!?”
“Dude I’m leaving.”
Shit I’m losing him, what can I…
I smiled.
“What, what! Is the great, elite Anton Shaw afraid of a gamble?”
His head snapped back towards me.
Got em
“What are you talking about?”
“Should I repeat myself?”
“No, no I heard you, I heard you real clear. But it sounds to me like we’re using betting words.”
“Maybe.”
“What do you have, YOU, that could possibly rival aaaaaallllll of this.”
It was a good question that I didn’t have an answer for
He put a hand to his ear and leaned in, “I’m listening.”
Until I did.
“Hannah Chen’s phone number.” I blurted out.
He pulled back, his brows furrowed in uncertainty.
“Proof?”
“We’re working on an assignment together with a few others.” I pulled up a picture of the group lists we had in music class. He snatched my phone.
“Any day I can ask for her number to collaborate at home.”
His eyes widened.
“Impossible…”
“I can help put you on. If we get caught, and banned, I’ll arrange things for you, and get her digits.”
Even though you’d still be too scared to make a move.
“And if we don’t get caught.”
“Uhh, I don’t know. I don’t really need anything.” I said rubbing my neck.
“No.” He handed my phone back.
“It’s no fun gambling if I don’t risk a loss. For something this big, it’s easily worth a third of my savings.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am dead serious.”
“Okay, well, you better promise not to fuck up this stake out.”
“Please, if we ever get caught, it’ll be because of you and that’s the truth.”
We laughed.
“So it’s settled.”
“Damn right.” we shook hands
I had convinced him.
We hid in the grounded carriage on the Ferris wheel and waited. 00:01:23, turned to 00:01:00 turned to 00:00:20, till finally the watches read 00:00:00. We waited and waited for what felt like minutes on end yet nothing happened. Anton was getting restless.
“Sure are taking their sweet time coming.” He said as he rose from where we hid. I felt foolish, and let down. Had I really planned on waiting the whole night just to find out how they moved the park? He stepped outside the cart, and I rose to follow when the park lights started to dim.
“Is-, is this normal…” His voice started to trail off. The lights began shining bright, brighter than ever before. We had to close our eyes. Then they dimmed again. It just kept going on and on, dimming before brightening, then dimming, then brightening.
“What’s up with these lights!” he hissed. Then all of the sudden I felt the ground starting to tremble beneath our feet, weak at first like standing on a washing machine, then picking up speed and power. It really started to rattle us. Anton staggered back stretching out to the cart to keep him from falling over, it knocked me back into my seat.
“What’s happening!” I asked.
“Earthquake!”
“We’re not supposed to get any!” Then the lights started to get brighter, and brighter, with no sign of dimming like before. It reached intensity rivalling the sun. We covered our eyes lest we go blind, and waited in terror until the quakes stopped, then at long last the world settled down. The tremors subsided, the lights dimmed one final time, and it was safe to open our eyes. I looked around into the void.
“Anton?” There was no response. “Anton, are you there?”
“Yeah,” he said groggily. “I think I have a headache now but, other than that I’m good. Hold on.” He unzipped his pants pocket and a few seconds later his phone lit up the area. “And god said let there be light.”
“Shut up.” I said through a smile. “Okay, bets over.”
“What, why? Was this not your idea?”
“Yeah but I didn’t account for a freaking earthquake waking up the entire neighborhood. My parents are gonna explode when they check up on an empty bedroom. Don’t worry about Chen’s number, I was always gonna hold up my end anyways.”
“Huh, that’s fair. No, You’re right.” Anton said “Let’s go, I’ll lead the way.”
There wasn’t much talking on our trek back to the gate. We were still pretty shaken. But when the entrance was in sight Anton nudged my arm.
“See that light over there?” he asked.
I strained my eyes staring all the way down at the booth, and for a second, I thought I caught a shining white light dancing around, but it went out as fast as I honed in on it. We looked at each other and ran over. As we drew near, we realized the gate was closed. We waltzed towards the booth where the old man was, but he just stood there like a statue, silent, unmoving, staring down at a watch like ours left on the ledge. The watches were counting down an hour now.
“Jeez he’s still here?”
“Right! Like go take a nap or something, this man’s way too committed to his job.”
Anton stepped forward.
“Hello.” There was no response.
“Hello Good sir.” He turned to me, “Is he dead or something?”
I shrugged.
Anton started knocking on the plexi-glass. “Yo wake up, we lost track of time. Here’s our watches. You can ban us for life now.” He mumbled that last part.
He unstrapped his watch and stretched it out in front of him, waiting for the old man to take it. The solemn geezer looked up at the watch, then back at us.
“Anton lets just go, we can leave them on the ledge, he’ll collect them when he wants.”
We did just that, then turned to the gate but it still stayed shut. I don’t really know what I was expecting to happen. Maybe it’d just open with some motion sensors but…
I turned back to the booth.
“Hello, uhmm, can you please open the gate? It’s shut.”
Grandpa didn’t budge. My pulse started to quicken. “Hold this,” Anton said, passing me his phone. He grabbed the bottom of the clown shaped gate by its teeth and started pulling up. “Come on!” I placed the phone on the ground and helped.
“Okay on three. One. Two. Three!” We pulled simultaneously with all our strength for a good while but it just wouldn’t rise. I sat down resting my back on the gate, staring into the sky as Anton tried to fit his arm underneath it.
He plopped down next to me defeated. “It’s no use man, we’re not getting through or-”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Anton the sky!” He looked up, “What about it?”
“It’s not there!
“Huh?”
“There’s no Moon! There’s no stars! There’s no birds, there’s no planes, there’s nothing!”
“M-maybe they’re just, blocked by the clouds.”
I sprung to my feet, “What clouds! It’s pitch black! There’s nothing there!”
I began to pace on the spot, trying to keep my composure whilst flooded with questions.
Where’s the damn sky? Did a dome form over the park? Are we underground? Why’s the booth master acting so weird? Were the tremors really an earthquake, will there be more? What the fuck happened to the lights?
I let out a long sigh, and took a seat. I tried to calm down and process everything.
“Okay, so we know that this gate will open at 10pm Sunday right?”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“And clearly… we can’t open it. So, with no other way out, let’s just wait here until 10, the gates open and we head home.”
Anton, sighed, “Sure man.”
A moment of silence passed.
“UUUUhhhh my mom’s gonna murder me.” We laughed hard.
I picked up his phone and suggested we find a place to sit. He shrugged, “Lead the way.”
Maybe 10 seconds after we passed the booth, the lights flashed back on. I jumped back startled. Anton just laughed, “Yes!”
He put away his phone. I took a seat at the lounging area followed by Anton who held a bag of popcorn in his left. “What? The popcorn machine still worked.” he said.
“Dude, you’re so fat.”
We laughed and he took a seat. It was admittedly a good idea, I was getting a little hungry for some real food, but this would have to do.
From then on we just sat and talked. Making plans for next week, complaining, the usual.
“Speaking of gym class, I’ve been meaning to ask, why do you always vote for soccer?”
He chuckled.
“And why don’t you try out for cross country, you’re so damn fast, especially for a chronic shut in.”
He laughed again.
“Uhh… answer one would be… because it’s the easiest sport to blame others when I screw up.”
“You dirty bastard.”
“Guilty,” he said, taking another pop corn.
“Answer two would be… I just don’t see the point in cross country. Like, congratulations you can run far, you still gotta commute, you know. I just take the bus wherever I want to go. It’s a useless ability.”
“Ok but what about the health benefits, living longer and all that.”
“I’m not that guy. When have you ever seen me drink anything but coke?”
“HA! Truuue.”
“No, this whole ‘live long, plan for the future!’ obsession’s crazy. All I care about is having fun. Everyone tells me to start strategizing, making a 5000 year plan or whatever, I don’t care about that. Want to hear the biggest lie in the world?”
It was rare to see him so serious. Not knowing what to do I simply nodded.
“The future. For everyone’s yap about it, all these people saying we should give a damn, it’s not real. It never was. It’s all in our heads. Remember in the past, when we planned to do a stake out, I don’t even know what we’re doing now. Everyone’s got all these plans and at any moment it can just get taken? I don’t need that. Slaving away for some bullshit in ‘the future’ with no guarantee you’ll get there, and they call me a gambler.”
“Come on, that’s just self-defeating. We’d be cavemen without that big lie.”
“I never said lies were a bad thing. I dabble in them sometimes. But if you pick anyone off the street that puts their life into something and you ask them ‘was it all worth it?’ How many people could say yes. How many people lived thinking they had a plan, when what they really had was a bet that blew their balls off. What makes you so certain that you’ll end up in that special group satisfied with what they’ve got. What makes YOU so special that all you do’ll pay off when for so many, there’s just failure. See, I’d be able to answer that first question with no hesitation. Because every decision I make brings returns, everything I choose is without this lofty Tomorrowland fogging my brain. I enjoy the now, I enjoy what’s real. I don’t care for future plans.”
“Is that so?”
“Hell yeah. Besides, what’s the point in doing anything I didn’t want to do, anything that didn’t make me happy? Someone’ll always achieve what you won’t, the world won’t miss a thing if I’m on the bench.”
The minutes felt like hours as we continued to converse, drifting from topic to topic, till we could hardly remember the first.
Then out of the blue…
“Dude there’s a guy who was selling-”
“Shhhh Shhhh Shhhh!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I think I saw somebody over there,” he said, pointing to my 8 o’clock.
“Really? You want me to look behind me.” I said.
“Dude I’m not joking, god damn. Do I lie that much?”
“You’re asking me? Fine, but I swear to god if you say ‘made you look’ I’m liable to punch you dead in the mouth.”
“Deal.”
I turned around and lo and behold there stood a man in some sort of blue jumpsuit holding a sac. “Oh shit you weren’t lying.”
“Duh. You think he can open the door for us.”
“Probably,” I said.
We got up from our seats and started walking over to him.
“How much do you think they pay this guy,”
“Maybe a hundred dollars an hour.”
“Really, that much?”
“Eh, whoever’s running this place for free I might add, must have some serious money to splurge. This is some MrBeast shit.”
“Fair enough.”
“God, this place is so eerie without people running around.”
“Seriously.”
“Should we try to sCaRe him?” Said Anton, wiggling his fingers.
“Oh definitely.”
“What’s up!” He called out
The man froze. Something didn’t feel right, a sudden shift in atmosphere
“Sorry we completely lost track of time, this place is super disorienting.”
He stood up straight, towering over us. He must’ve been 7 feet.
“Could you..let us out, please and thank you”, he cleared his throat, “gate’s locked…”
He turned around and we jolted back.
“Jesus Christ! What the fuck’s wrong with…”
It was missing 50% of a face. No nose. No mouth. Just dead beady eyes and ears.
It examined us thoroughly.
We started backtracking.
“We need to go.”
It marched after us.
“Shit!”
We ran back where we came looking over our shoulders every so often to see it managed to keep up with us merely speed walking. It removed the metallic trash picker from its belt and extended it with a flick.
We reached the lounge area down the road when Anton spotted-
“Another one!” he screamed pointing up ahead, we hopped and slid over a table before ducking between some chairs. We moved with a fear like we’ve never known, weaving through the lounge like rats in a maze. We split up, which seemed to stall it momentarily as it processed which one to go for. It chose me. I was hyperventilating. With every step I felt the spear sinking into my back the very next second. Then the worst came to pass, I stumbled over the foot of a table. I could feel myself moving forward faster than I could get my legs beneath me, when Anton shoved me eastward and dragged me up from my fall. He groaned through gritted teeth as we pushed our way out of the area. We reared up from our crouch and bolted forward, “Arcade! Sprint for real!”
“I am!”
“Like this!”
Anton sprung forward and past me pumping his arms, hitting the ground with the balls of his feet and with every stride almost kicking his ass with how fast he brought his leg up under him. I tried my best to follow suit but he was way faster. The closer we drew to the arcade tent, the wider our gap. Anton slipped through the flaps. I skidded inside after and spotted him all the way at the back, pulling up the bottom of the tent’s wall. I ran his way. “Quick, get under!” He shouted, straining to keep it up. I slid halfway through, before having to wiggle the rest of my body outside. I was free. I looked back in, right as the flaps parted and that thing stepped through the entrance. “Meet me at the booth.” He said, before dropping it. “Wait!”
I moved to lift it back up, “Anton get-” I stopped mid sentence. There was something in my peripheral vision, Oh god no. Another one off to my right, standing a hundred feet away. It took one step forward. And that was it. One step, and like the coward I am, I spun on my heel, and abandoned my best friend without a second thought.