Carnival After Dark

Chapter 2: Haunted House

Yay!  First person dies.  Finally.

Chapter 2:  Haunted House

Mike’s P.O.V.

“Come on, girls!  Hurry up, or else it’s already going to be morning and we’ll miss all the rides!” I called.

“I don’t think I can handle any more rides,” groaned Tori, leaning on Winnie.

“Agreed.  My gosh, I could barely stand up after we went on that,” Winnie said, motioning to the ride we just got off of—Terror Tower.

“You game?” I asked Johnny.

“Heck yea!”

“Alright then, we’re dragging them on there with us.” I pointed to the ride ahead of us, the Haunted House.

“Oh, no….” I heard Winnie breathe behind us.

“Oh, yes,” I said, as I sat in the front bench and pulled her in beside me.

“No!  No way am I sitting up front!  I’m going back there with Tori!” she tried to get up to climb in the back with Tori and Johnny.  I grabbed her arm.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

“Hey!”

“Conquer your fears, Winnie.  If you believe, you can do the unimaginable.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged.  “Just go with it.”  Since the ride was automatic, we didn’t have to press a button or anything for the ride to gently start creaking into the dark tunnel.  Winnie immediately attached herself to my arm, burying her face in it.  I patted her head awkwardly.

At first, it was pitch black so that you couldn’t hear anything.  Then there were screams that were heard everywhere, and, suddenly, with no warning, some fake guy that was being hanged was dropped down on us from above.  Winnie screamed after peeking out of my sleeve, and buried her face back in my arm.  Her scream made me jump out of my seat about four feet in the air.  Gosh, that chick was loud!  While I momentarily lost my hearing, we went by all kinds of clearly fake scary scenes.

Like a zombie getting his head blown off.  Some of the “blood” sprayed all over us.  At that point, Winnie grabbed her hair and said sadly, “My hair!”

“What, now it’ll just dye your hair red,” Tori joked.

“Yeah, it would be a great change from that brown that you have it dyed,” Johnny added.

Winnie spun around angrily.  “WHAT?!”

“What, was it a secret that you have naturally blonde hair?” Johnny asked confusedly.

“YES!”

“Why’d you change it?” I asked.

“Because I was sick of those stupid blonde jokes!” Winnie spun back to face front angrily, and then buried her face in my arm again.

We went past lots more scenes—werewolves, vampires, zombies, aliens—and then at one point got to one where all kinds of windows were swinging open on both sides of us and different things popped out.  Normal things were popping out, like a butchered pig and a man with his arm chopped off, but then some guy with a ski mask and a knife popped out right beside Winnie.  Not that she saw it.

What happened next was like in slow motion.  The guy with the knife stabbed Winnie in the heart.  Her body went rigid, and her head jerked back.  Her grip on my arm increased.  And then she let out a bloodcurdling scream.  It was the worst sound I had ever heard. 

The ride kept going on, but Tori and Johnny and I were all staring at Winnie and screaming.  Blood was now on all of us, but the guy had taken the knife.  Winnie was lying down on the floor of the car, her eyes staring emotionless at the ceiling.  She was dead.

I think I was the first to jump out.  I pried Winnie’s hand off my arm, jumped out of the cart, and took off running on the right side of the rails.  I looked to my left and saw Tori and Johnny on the left side of the rails.  We had all left dead Winnie in the cart. 

The bad thing about running away in a haunted house is that you keep tripping over things.  And since all of the machinery is motion-activated, things keep popping out at you.  Tori and Johnny were doing just fine.  Johnny knew how the ride worked and where all of the obstacles were, so he helped Tori maneuver her way out.

I looked behind me and saw the guy with the ski mask chasing us, except he was on the left side of the rails, where Johnny and Tori were.  I turned around and kept running as fast as I could.  I felt concrete hit my face, and then blood dripping down my face.  I had clearly run into a wall.  I felt my way around it and heard a shriek coming from behind me.

It was Tori.  Her shirt was caught on some gears.  And the guy with the ski mask was coming straight for her, with his knife ready.  Johnny turned around and somehow loosened her shirt from the gears and they sprinted toward the exit.  In fact, I could hear the music clearly now.  We must be getting closer.

I burst through the black curtain and ran the most obvious way—straight.  Now that I think about it, it would have been a lot smarter to run a different direction.  Wouldn’t straight sort of be obvious for a killer?

After running on the path and past dozens of rides for a while, I finally stopped to catch my breath.  I looked behind me.  No Johnny.  No Tori.  I looked everywhere around me.  Nope.  No Johnny.  No Tori.

I decided to roam around the fairgrounds for a while, to think about what had happened and to search for the others.  Eventually, I realized that the killer might see me, so I ducked behind a bench and waited it out.  I would stay there until I saw one of the others.  No way was I moving from this spot.

I sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.

What had I gotten myself into?

I would really appreciate it if y'all would comment or vote or something.  :) please?

-NoelleBurchett