The idea to come here in the morning also belonged to Jane, as she hoped that mornings would have fewer visitors. And she had been right—the carnival was almost deserted. Most likely, the reason was not so much the almost-forgotten reputation of the grounds as much as the cloudy and windy weather and the lack of advertizing. There were no lines to get on any of the rides, but it was necessary to wait for another reason: the workers didn’t want to run their whirligigs and cars half-empty and wouldn’t start the rides before a number of customers had gathered.
This didn’t discourage Jane. Nothing prevented her from chatting cheerfully with Mike, who of course wasn’t content with the role of purse keeper and willy-nilly accompanied her on her dizzying rides. The young people consistently paid their tribute to all spinning and twisting units, excluding only the simplest carrousels for little kids (but, certainly, including “Sky Ship” on the long bar which made the loops so disliked by Mike; at the top point, hanging upside down in an open cabin, Jane shrieked, and then began to laugh loudly; Mike only nervously squeezed the safety bar and thought “when will this end?”); practiced in accuracy, shooting with air-rifles and crossbows and throwing balls in a ring; tried to walk inside transparent plastic spheres floating in a pool (it turned out, naturally, not so much walking as falling); made a “space flight” in a cabin with a screen, which was shaking and heeling in all directions according to the action on the screen; ate cotton candy and popcorn; were photographed dressed as pirates and cowboys with the corresponding scenery in the background; wriggled in front of fun house mirrors and…
“Well, looks like we’ve done everything here,” Mike uttered, glancing towards the exit.
“Wait,” Jane objected, once again stopping at the carnival map near the cash booth. “Hmm, it does look like everything,” she disappointedly concluded.
“So, let’s leave?”
“First I need to pee,” declared Jane; she didn’t trouble herself with euphemisms like “to powder my nose.” Having found the restroom icon on the map, she resolutely moved in the chosen direction.
Mike didn’t have the same need. While cola was sold at the carnival, it was ice cold, and on this overcast day Mike hadn’t wanted any, while Jane drank up a big plastic cup. So he remained in place, absent-mindedly looking around. By 3 p.m., the carnival gradually had become filled with visitors. They were mostly parents with little children or they were small companies of boys about twelve or thirteen years old. Adult guys with their girlfriends, like Mike and Jane, were still rare—they would come closer to the evening… Reacting to the increase in visitors, disguised barkers appeared in the thin crowd. One of them, a fat clown with a red smile drawn on his white face, seemed to feel Mike’s gaze from a distance of several yards and suddenly turned to him, conspiratorially winked and beckoned him with a finger.
Mike politely smiled as if to say, “Thanks, mister, but I already visited your tent.” The clown nodded as if he understood, turned and moved away, but then looked back and beckoned again.
“What does he want from me?” Mike wondered and even looked back, checking whether there was somebody behind him to whom the clown had been gesturing. But he didn’t see anybody looking towards the clown. Mike looked towards where the clown had been, but didn’t see him any longer—probably the barker had disappeared behind the backs of the walking visitors or entered the nearest tent. Very well, let him disappear. There was something unpleasant about this character, though Mike couldn’t say what exactly. However, he had disliked clowns since his childhood, finding their appearance not at all funny but ugly.
Jane had disappeared somewhere, too. Why is she dawdling so long? Probably there is a line waiting to get into the restroom. Mike slowly moved in the same direction his girlfriend had gone—and in the same direction, as he understood a second later, the clown had beckoned him. Mike gazed around in order not to miss the girl and realized he would feel calmer if he could see to which attraction the clown enticed people. Fun house, probably? But it was in the opposite direction… For an instant it seemed to Mike that he saw the clown directly ahead once more, but in the next moment the barker disappeared again.
Without having seen either the red-lipped fat man or Jane, Mike reached the restroom area located in the farthest corner of the carnival. There were mobile booths, not a stationary building. And there was no waiting line there. Actually, there was not a single person.
Mike looked around. Just a moment ago the crowd around him had rustled, rides’ mighty electric motors had roared, girls had shrieked as they rose head over heels to the sky, wild buffoonery tunes had played—and suddenly he found himself absolutely alone, in a completely desolate part of the former waste grounds. Actually, why former? Here it didn’t look former at all… No, the fun was still near; choral squeals, persuasive melody and the clap of air-rifles reached his ears—but he was separated from all this joy by the wall of a long shed with a stenciled black inscription “Employees only” across the door, a trailer with lowered window blinds nearby, a long truck next to it (probably one of those which carried the equipment), one more behind it… This part of the grounds overgrew with rigid bushes which were cut only partially; toilet booths were, of course, on the cleared patch, but right behind them the thickets shot up above human height. To the left of the booths, a recently embedded wooden post stuck out, which, however, had neither a lamp nor a loud-speaker. In the grass under Mike’s feet a plastic bottle unpleasantly crackled—apparently it had lain here for years. Slightly farther a yellowish scrap of an old newspaper could be seen… But where was Jane?!
“Mike!”
He startled and looked about. The girl appeared from behind the booths.
“Good that you came. I knew that we hadn’t visited everything here yet!” she stated with a happy look.
“Yeah, exactly, we hadn’t visited the toilet,” Mike grinned.
“Forget the toilet! Come here.”
The young man took several steps, bypassing toilets at the left, and saw behind them a narrow pass which led somewhere into the thickets. But Jane pointed to the post. Now Mike made out a small sign hanging on it. On a plywood sheet a thick black contour of an arrow was drawn, and inside it it was written in deliberately sloppy red letters: “CAVE of HORROR” Below the arrow was a very naturalistic print of a blood-stained palm. The arrow pointed directly to the pass.
“One more attraction? Here?” Mike skeptically looked at the narrow path between prickly bushes. Usually such paths lead, at best, to a garbage dump.
“Yes. Let’s go!” she impatiently grasped his hand and pulled him along.
“What for?” Mike resisted. “Like, you’ve never seen anything similar before. They’ll just ride you in a car through a shed filled by plastic skeletons and vampire dummies, flashing red lights and howling loudspeakers… it seems to me, such a primitive display doesn’t affect even children anymore. In the movies all that looks much more plausible.”
“Well, now that we’re here, shouldn’t we look? Maybe it has some good special effects!” Jane was quite decided about it and the young man, having sighed, followed his girlfriend.
As far as Mike understood, the surrounding fence should have been very close, but the path appeared longer than he expected—for some reason it was wedged through the interlacing prickly branches in a very winding way. But then, at last, bushes parted—and the couple indeed saw a chain link fence. Behind it, the same bushes densely grew, too. But on the inner side a wide spot was cleared, and there stood one more building.