It looked like all of them in any carnival. A long shed decorated with paper-mache stones in an effort to make it look like a cave; the forward wall was covered with garish images of corpses, skulls, bats and freaks with blood-stained hatchets. Above this all—the attraction’s name in convex red letters, stylized to blood streaks and obviously highlighted from within in the evening. Below—the rails on which cars enter the “cave” at the left and exit it from the right.
There were only two cars and they were just preparing for departure; the forward one was occupied by a mother with a boy about eleven, who surely was a big fan of horror movies and the initiator of the ride (the woman herself had a displeased look); in the back car a single young guy, swarthy, with long black hair, was taking a seat. The attraction worker—thin, with a loppy dark mustache, dressed in an old-fashioned black suit—a living image of a provincial coffin maker from an old movie—was waiting, with his hand on a knife switch, until the last passenger sat down.
“Wait!” Jane shouted, quickening her pace. “Wait for us!” The cars were four-seater so there still was room for them.
The “coffin maker” raised his head and looked at her and Mike; the girl, approaching, stretched to him a ticket bought at the cash booth which granted the right to ride all attractions in the carnival during this day. But he only shook his head:
“A separate ticket is required for us, miss.”
“Separate? What the hell? We paid for everything…” Jane began to argue, but the worker mildly interrupted her:
“Those are the rules, miss. There are some formalities. You have to sign a paper,” he smiled an apologetic mournful smile, clearly showing that personally he, of course, considered all this as nonsense, but this was the will of his bosses. Mike noticed that there was something old-fashioned in his manner of speech, too.
“Paper?” Jane became puzzled. “What paper?”
“You see, our attraction is really frightful,” he highlighted the word “really” with his voice. “Some clients consider that it is too frightful. Therefore, in order to avoid complaints…”
“Well, all right,” the girl gave up. “Where can we get tickets and sign this paper?”
“At the cash booth, miss,” he pointed with his hand, emphasizing that he meant not at all the main cash booth of the carnival. “At our cash booth.”
Jane and Mike turned right and indeed saw a booth with a window. The “coffin maker” meanwhile turned the switch and the cars, having abruptly started, disappeared in the black mouth of the “cave.”
Mike and Jane approached the cash booth and bent to the window. The person sitting inside seemed unpleasant to Mike from the very first look. Unshaven and tousled, he looked too slovenly even for his modest position and his left eye, significantly squinting somewhere aside from under the heavy eyelid, only strengthened the unpleasant impression.
“Twenty dollars,” he responded to a request for two tickets. “And you have to sign here,” he offered them two sheets of paper.
“I am visiting the attraction ‘Cave of Horror’ of my own will, having received this warning and assuming all risks,” Mike’s eyes slid through his copy of the text. “Except for cases of technical malfunction of the attraction, the administration and employees of the carnival bear no responsibility for possible moral, mental or physical damage which may become a consequence of my visit to the attraction, as well as for the case of my disappearance…”
“What kind of bull is this?” Mike exclaimed indignantly.
“Oh, never mind,” Jane waved his objection away with the look of a life-wise person. “It’s an advertizing gimmick, don’t you understand? To frighten us in advance… Do you have a pen, mister?” she addressed the cashier. He gave her a pen with an indifferent gesture.
“Wait a moment, don’t sign!” Mike exclaimed. “What do you mean by ‘advertizing gimmick?’ Do you understand that these pieces of paper relieve them from any responsibility for any accident there inside?”
“Oh, what accidents?” Jane objected. “That’s not a roller coaster or a ‘Sky Ship’ after all. You said yourself—they’ll give us a ride in a car between dummies… what can happen to us?”
“You never know! Short circuit, for example. Or some scarecrow could fall on our heads…”
“But it says here—’except technical malfunction!’ And also, do you really think that if somebody really disappeared here, they would have gotten away with it, whatever pieces of paper we’ve signed?”
“And how often here do, well, disappearances happen?” Mike asked the cashier, trying to give a derisive tone to his voice.
“Time to time,” the squinty-eyed man unperturbably answered. Jane burst into laughter and put a flourish on the sheet.
“Come on, Mikey,” she jabbed her elbow into his side. “Don’t be chicken.”
“I’m not chicken at all!” Mike was indignant. “I simply don’t like this silly piece of paper or all this foolish business. To pay them twenty bucks moreover… it’s actually a swindle—when we bought the tickets, we weren’t warned that there are rides for which they can’t be used…”
“Well, let me pay for you,” Jane pulled out her wallet from a pocket of her jeans. The unsaid end of the sentence—“if you are such a cheapskate”—was as clear as if it were written in the air in an oval near her head, like in comics; so Mike muttered “no need” and with an angry look wrote his signature.
At the very same time a heart-breaking scream came from within the “cave.”
The pen jerked in Mike’s hand, leaving a virgule on the paper.
“Aha, and you said—even a child wouldn’t be scared!” Jane vindictively reminded him.
“Well, of course—recorded screams from loudspeakers,” grumbled Mike. “Only it was too loud and unexpected. If it was so loud here, I bet those inside were totally deafened.”
Actually there was something else that confused him. The shout full of horror and pain sounded too natural. Well, however, if the owners of the attraction had hired a good actor… Yes, that was the main strangeness—an actor, not an actress. Such cries are always female: the girl in monster’s claws is the tritest cliche of the genre… But this shout was male.
Having received the money and the signed papers, the cashier issued them two tickets. On a low-quality gray paper it was printed:
Below small letters added:
Mike hemmed, derisively shaking his head, and the young people went towards the building. Just when they approached, the exit doors of the “cave” swung open, and the car rolled out. Only one car.
The one in which mother and son sat. The child’s face and rounded eyes shone with excitement. The woman, on the contrary, was deadly pale and looked as if she was barely constraining nausea.
“You shouldn’t show such things!” she said between her teeth to the “coffin maker” as she tried to get out from the seat; her long dress hindered her. “Especially to children!”
“Ma’am, you signed the paper that you were warned and have no claims,” the worker sadly reminded. “And it seems to me your son doesn’t have any complaints, too”