Page 3 of His to Fear
Our screams echo throughthe spooky ride, the moment before the cart plummets into the people tied to the trail. A sick, thumping sound fills the tunnel, mingling with the jarring sound of skulls breaking.
And then, silence ensues. My throat is still hoarse, fighting for purchase as tears trickle down my cheeks at a rapid pace, but the cart doesn’t stop. It keeps taking us forward.
This time, I can’t stop the nausea building up within me, traveling up my throat until the only thing I can do is expel whatever food I’ve had today. Most of it comes out as bile.
This is all a nightmare. I’ve been dropped into one of those horror movies my best friend, Eveline, is obsessed with. Being trapped inside an amusement park with a killer on the loose wasn’t something I expected when coming here to write an article about our town’s first Halloween-themed amusement park. Especially not with the gates sealed, the power outage keeping them locked tight.
Are we next in line?
The cart lurches, picking up its speed and making a sharp turn, until it slowly comes to a stop at the entrance to the ride.
I stare up at the sign, at the ride’s name painted in bold, taunting letters. Dödens Tåg.
Death’s Train.
The words twist in my mind, warping into something that takes on a whole other meaning.
My cold fingers fumble with the security belt until it finally clicks free now that the ride has come to an end. When I step onto the platform, my legs betray me, unable to keep my body’s weight any longer. I collapse hard onto the ground, shock wracking havoc over every inch of my skin until I’m violently shaking. It feels as if an Arctic wind has surged through the October night air, rooting itself beneath my pores.
“Y-your clothes,” Max—my colleague at the Rosén Newspaper—stutters. His eyes are wide like saucers as he stares down at me.
Bile fills my mouth with a sour taste as I look down.
Red splotches cover me from my chest to my legs, and I realize quickly what it is. Blood.
“Oh my fuck,” I whisper.
“D-did you see the man in the shadows?” he asks.
I shake my head. I’m glad I didn’t.
“H-he just stood there, waiting for us.”
It all feels like a nightmare. Surely, this can’t be real.
I need to find my best friend. We never should have gotten separated.
“Nadia!” a voice screams from outside the spooky ride, and I scramble to my feet, fighting to keep my balance.
Relief makes my shoulders sag as I notice Eveline outside, mouth agape in shock.
“What the fuck were you doing in there?”
We tell her the story about what happened. How we were pushed into the cart before we could get out. The people…
As if on cue, the lights turn on, and my heart thuds harder. More tears spill down my cheeks like a never-ending river, but hope lights inside of me.
That’s our way out, before the power cuts again.
“We’ll get out of here intact. I promise you that.” Max looks me in the eye, kissing my forehead.
Chapter 3
Nadia.
Present day
The Circus
