Dreams Qf Nightmares

Chapter 1 ~ After the Before

The enticing scent got stronger as Jack got closer, and he was getting more and more psyched by the minute. I'll tell you right now, though, it had been one nightmare of a day for the young teenager. And in more ways than one.
      He was still a little bit rattled. More than a bit confused, too. But that sticky-sweet aroma of cotton candy, corn dogs, and caramel apples drifted far and wide with an open invitation to an exciting evening of some good-old-fashion carnival fun.
      The Funtastic Traveling Wonderland was in town, and it had checked in the day before with all the bustle, hubbub, and ballyhoo of a bigtime amusement show. Jack could hardly wait to explore every square inch of excitement. He also wanted to distance himself from all of the bad stuff that happened to him earlier that day at school. At least for a while anyway.
      If you were to ask him, Jack would probably tell you that he'd just as soon spend a day at a carnival midway than just about anywhere else in the universe. But on that  unforgettable day, he was called down to the principal's office after his last class, and now he was running late. So, he leaned hard into the handlebars of his rusty old Sears Roebuck hand-me-down and pedaled even faster.
       A huge caravan of 18-wheelers, flatbeds, trailers, RVs, box trucks, and pickups rolled into town at dawn the day before like a conquering army. Just before sundown the next day, the town's dormant fairgrounds had been transformed once more, like magic, into a spectacular playground for kids and for all those who wanted to play like kids again. 
      The midway was bustling. Folks young and old came from near and far. Most were anxious, like Jack, to challenge as many thrill rides as possible. Others might try to win a cheap kewpie doll or a big stuffed teddy bear at the hinky games of chance and skill. Hardly anyone, though, could resist the temptation to taste some sinful carnival eats. Old and new favorites like deep-fried Oreos, salt water taffy, and funnel cakes dusted with a flurry of powdered sugar.
      Jack locked up his bike as soon as he entered the gates of the fairgrounds. And he headed straight for the nearest ticket booth, where a long line stretched more than halfway down the midway's main concourse. Everyone was in good spirits, as the kaleidoscopic display of multi-colored neon danced in time to the rhythmic pounding of rock 'n roll over the loud speakers, and the wildly hypnotic choreography of the amusement rides surrounding them.
      But as time wore on, and the line inched ahead at a snail's pace, they were all complaining about the long delay. Everyone but Jack. His head was foggy, and his eyes were glazed over as if he'd been drugged. But no one noticed. No one was paying attention to the solitary boy who didn't say word to anyone the entire time he was waiting in line. By the time he managed to make his way to the head of the line, he didn't even realize it was his turn. He just stood there only a few steps short of the ticket booth that eagerly awaited him.
        A beefy carny sporting a purple beard and a shaved head called out to him from his ticket window. "Hey, ya'll, time's awastin'. And I shore ain't gittin' any prettier." 
       The carny's molasses-thick Southern drawl and good-ole-boy patter couldn't hide his obvious impatience. So, when Jack didn't reply, he banged his fist hard on his ticket counter and hollered to get his attention. "Yo, dude! Ya'll want any these here tickets or what?"
       That got Jack's attention, although his spell was only just beginning to lift a little bit. "Were you, uh, I mean, you were, like, talkin' to me, uh, right?" Jack muttered.
      "Not nobody else," said the carny. "But all them pissed off villagers in that line right behind ya'll, they be carryin' torches and pitchforks, and they're fixin' to poke your young behind."
       "Okay, yeah, uh, got it, uh, sorry," Jack sputtered, as he approached the ticket window on unsteady legs. "Like I said, how much are they? You know, like, the tickets, I mean.
       "Depends how much ya'll need." The carny pointed to a tall poster below his window with ten ticket options. "See, we got all kinds, all prices, just five tickets a ride. You by yerself, boy.
      "Hunh? Yeah, uh, me, just me," Jack replied sheepishly. As usual, he said to himself.
      "Might wanna check out our Super Funtastic Wristband. Great little deal, ride all weekend, don't need no tickets, never know, maybe make a new friend or somethin'. Only twenty-nine bucks, for you twenty-five, git yerself a box a popcorn and a cold Coke. on me. Can't beat that with a stick. Waddya say there, kiddo?
        Jack didn't want to spend more than fifteen dollars on tickets. Twenty max. Twenty-five was out of the question. He quickly scanned the price list on the poster, and decided on the fourth one down. Seventy-five tickets for twenty dollars. Anything less, he feared, might not last him the night, let alone the entire three-day weekend.
        "Guess I gotta go with the one for, like, ummm twenty, I guess," he replied reluctantly.
       "Heh-hey! Darn good guess, kid, twenty buckaroos it is. Cha-ching!"
       Jack dug into one of his jeans pockets and produced a crisp twenty-dollar bill, a recent gift from his grandmother on his thirteenth birthday. The carny handed him a red ribbon of tickets, which seemed much shorter than what Jack was expecting.
       The carny leaned out his window and looked to his left, then right, then at Jack again. "Have yerself a helluva good time tonight, young man," he said in a dead serious tone, as if he were handing out some dead serious fatherly advice. "But ya'll be careful now out there, hear?"
     Jack was determined to have a helluva good time after everything that happened earlier that day. Mr. Zaminsky, the school principal, had shrugged it all off as "unfortunate incidents"
      But as far as Jack was concerned, all those "incidents" weren't so much "unfortunate" as they were scary, painful, and downright weird.
     He started down the sawdust-covered concourse in the general direction of what carnies call their spin-and-puke rides. Rainbow-colored plastic pennants and chintzy oriental lanterns lined the way. The manic rotations and wild gyrations of all the mechanical monsters tried to seduce him. He thought about taking a spin on the Gravitron, but he also wanted to see what else there was to see first.
     He decided to detour across the concourse to the ragtag row of carnival games, where the fast-talking jointies were hard at work ballying the wide-eyed rubes to "step right up and win-a-prize-win-a-prize-win-a-prize".
      He thought about playing the Milk Bottle Toss or trying his hand at the Dime Pitch where "everyone's a winner". He opted instead to return later.
      So, he wandered back to the spin-and-puke rides, past The Spider and Cliff Hanger, when he spotted his all-time favorite ride, the old spin-and-puke Tilt-a-Whirl.
      He could hear children screaming, and he smiled. The screams were those of fright and delight that rose and fell with each rise and fall, tilt and whirl, of the ride's freewheeling cars. Anxious parents looked on warily, helplessly, behind  protective fencing . He suspected they were all praying that their kids would return to them in one piece but, most of all, puke-free.