“Smart.”
It hadn’t looked that big when we were walking up to it.Hell, the carousel looked like it had a whopping three horses on it when we stepped on.But now, the spinning ride picked up speed, and with each revolution, more horses and odd creatures appeared on new poles, which seemed to genuinely stab through their bodies.
The machine whizzed faster, and Lizzie and I had to walk against the rotation to attempt reaching the other side of the thing.That’s where the back of the room was, where the exit would be on a non-haunted ride.However, with it moving this fast and new animals popping up, all missing skin and eyes, it was getting almost impossible to navigate without bumping into one of them.
“Fucking—Ugh.Try to step inward over here.”Lizzie pointed to her right, closer to the central mechanism of the ride.
Angling that way, I held tight to her hand as we slipped between two horses.They didn’t move, but it was like their stares tracked us, and the one to our left, the one whose mouth was way too close for comfort, seemed to stretch just a hair, like it was inching its teeth forward.
“Lizzie, I don’t—Ah!”
I yelped as just in front of us, an elephant appeared on the carousel, popping up from the floor with a shiny gold pole sticking out of it.The thing looked worse than the horses, its trunk hanging half cut off, and its ears ragged and torn.One chunk in particular looked like it might have been a bite mark, and the ribs showed too, intestines still coiled inside it and held in place by the bewitched wood and lacquer construction.
My foot slipped, and I pitched backward as Lizzie got around it.Her shoulder yanked as I stumbled, and for a moment, I didn’t know if I should let go or not.She gripped me tighter, though, keeping me from twisting to the left, my face inches from the horse’s open mouth.
Its teeth snapped down, chomping at me.“Fuck!Lizzie, go!”
All around us, mouths clacked down, wooden teeth crunching together as the inanimate animals surged to life, a freakish showing of impaled creatures, decaying and baying loudly, trying ceaselessly to devour us.
Lizzie took off, keeping her fingers laced through mine, and I ran with her, doing everything I could to fling us toward the back half of this carousel.We were so close, and my thighs burned as we started to gain ground on the speeding ride.
Whinnying rang out near me, and I stopped short as one of the horses closed its teeth down on my skirt.I pulled against it, the fabric loudly tearing, and then another animal, a peacock, burst through the floor.It sent me flying forward as I did my best to tumble out of the way, the wooden platform unforgiving as I rolled, smashing my knees and elbows into it.
“Temps!”
I turned over my shoulder to see Lizzie with her braid in the grip of a zombified monkey, my stomach dropping through the earth.
Oh fuck.
Standing, I took off for her, looking for anything that I could use to whack the damn thing and get it to let her go.That elephant was close, trumpeting its broken horn in this horrible sound.
The trunk.Oh, dammit, gross.
I got to it, careful to keep my fingers and appendages out of mouth range, and I grabbed hold of the trunk, wrenching it hard in one direction.The wood snapped, making the animal go silent, and I ran to Lizzie, swinging as hard as I could into the monkey’s head.It smashed clean off, splinters flying, and I dropped the trunk to grab her hand.
We ran for the back of the ride, not looking behind us but only forward as we rushed for the way off.Reality seemed to stretch and thin, and the sounds of laughter from the sides of the ride crescendoed.The shadows were closing in, the lights on the top of the carousel blinking out one after the other.
“The light!We need to conjure it again!”
Holding out my hand with Lizzie’s fingers knotted in mine, I forced the magic there, calling on hers too.We screamed as we both pushed the ball of light to appear and grow, swallowing up the area around it.That pull on reality lessened, and we used everything we had to leap off the carousel and into the dimly lit doorway, the red glow behind it faint and pulsing.
Unsurehowmuchtimehad passed, I came back to myself, lifting my head off the floor, Lizzie on the checkered tiles next to me.Everything ached, and as I looked around, trying to get my bearings, all I could do was groan.
“A funhouse.Amazing.”
Lizzie stood up, pulling herself off the floor with a low moan of pain, and held a hand out to me, helping me up.Her braid had come free in several places, and she was sporting a bleeding lip.It probably happened from hitting the ground when we jumped, and I looked down to see that my knees were bleeding too.
“We get through it.Just like the last time.”
I nodded back at her.“Right.Okay, don’t let go.I…I hate these things.”
“I know, babe.I got you.”
We looked down the narrow hall ahead of us.It was dark in her, only enough light to just make out the walls and floor.Things on the walls glowed, little figurines and dolls, their empty eyes watching us as we slowly crept down the first passageway.
“Hehehehe!”A clown figure jumped out from the corner, snarling through his laugh as he held a massive, round saw blade up, the thing secured to a baseball bat.“Come and play, girlies!”
“Run.”
