“So, you do this with all the girls you first meet, huh?” Brown Eyes laughs.
I clasp her hand tightly in mine as we go back around the Ferris wheel for the sixth or seventh time. I gave the vendor twenty bucks in the end to let us just stay on for as long as we wanted. I can’t afford it, really. I only work part-time at a bakery, but I’m hoping to get into something with computers once I finish college.
“This,” I gesture to our entwined hands, “or this?” I lean over and kiss her again.
“Both.” She laughs, kissing me back.
“Nah, I actually just came out of a horrible relationship,” I say.
Her brow puckers.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I told you that. You didn’t need to know,” I say hurriedly.
“It’s okay, I want to know all about you,” she says and then looks down to her feet shyly.
The sky has darkened, the sun finally set, and the moon has risen high in the sky. It’s a clear night, with stars shining over the entire fairground.
“It’s lovely up here, don’t you think?” Brown Eyes doesn’t look at me as she says this.
“It sure is,” I say contentedly, still staring at the side of her face.
The wheel gets lower to the ground again, and I finally see Daryl with our friends looking around for me. He catches my eye, and cheers as our little cart goes back up.
“You know those guys?” Brown Eyes asks with a quirk of her eyebrow, watching Daryl make an idiot of himself as he does a goofy dance.
I shrug apologetically. “Unfortunately so.”
Flashing lights in the distance distract me from the rest of my sentence, and I see two or three police cars screeching into the fairground. I frown as a couple of the officers jump out and start shouting at people, pointing at them and shoving them to one side. One officer grabs a megaphone and starts yelling into it, but as the ride goes higher, his words are muffled out.
“What do you think is going on?” Brown Eyes asks curiously.
I shrug. “I have no idea.” I watch Daryl head over to the police, and I feel happy that he’ll handle the situation and come back to let me know what’s going on. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” I say quietly.
One of the officers fires a gun into the crowd and everyone starts screaming and backing away—all but one. Brown Eyes squeezes my hand tighter and yelps as another shot sounds out from somewhere. I scan the area, trying to pinpoint where the gunshot came from. It doesn’t sound like the pellet gun I shot earlier, but a real gun. The ride is close to the ground again now, and I can see that the vendor has left his station—obviously gone to see what’s happening with the police; or hell, maybe he’s run away and is hiding somewhere. That seems like the smartest move, despite my current predicament of being stuck on his damn ride with no way off. I look around at the other people that are on the Ferris wheel, noticing that they look just as worried as we are.
“That doesn’t sound like nothing,” she whispers.
I can’t help but think that she’s right as another shot rings out louder, sounding closer to us, and I watch more people scream and run away, scattering like mice in every direction. One of the police officers steps in front of someone and fires his gun twice more, and further screaming ensues. I can’t stop myself from flinching at the sound—and the image, even from this distance. Brown Eyes grabs onto my elbow and I hear her gasp, but I’m so lost in what is happening that I barely acknowledge it.
Another man steps toward the officer, lurching forward, and as he moves I see a body on the ground, with a dark patch of something that I can only assume is blood surrounding it. The sky is getting darker now, and it’s making it harder to see from this distance. The Ferris wheel continues to turn, sending us back up into the night sky, and in some ways I’m grateful for the separation from the chaos, but in others, I want to get off this thing and find out what the hell is happening.
“We need to get off,” Brown Eyes says, pulling my face to hers as she searches my features for some form of answer.
I nod, but she doesn’t see it, her eyes moving off to stare at the police cars and the fuss surrounding them. Most people have scattered to a safe distance, but some people look like they are trying to help. I can’t make out exactly what is happening, but I can tell that the situation is getting out of hand. I look for Daryl and see him fighting with another guy, and I groan and shake my head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to go help my friend,” I say and point to Daryl with a frown. He’s going to get into some serious shit if he gets caught fighting again. “What about your friends? Who did you come with?” I turn in my seat to see her more clearly.
“I came with my mom and dad, but they’ve already left. I told them I was going to stick around for a little longer.” Her eyes are wide with worry and my gut clenches, knowing that she stayed so that she could look for me. If anything happens to her, it will be my fault.
The wheel goes back toward the ground, and I think about jumping off. The vendor hasn’t come back yet, and instead we’re all forced to endure another ride around the wheel, which suddenly doesn’t feel quite so romantic anymore.
There are a couple of people staggering around, and before the ride gets too high I shout down to one of them. “Hey, mister, can you turn this thing off please?”
An older man with graying hair and a moustache looks over to us and I gasp loudly as I see his face: blood covers the front of his shirt and his lips peel back to reveal a bloodied mouth. He snarls and lurches toward us.
“Oh shit,” I mutter. I follow with my eyes as our car goes higher up. “What’s wrong with you?”
He stumbles on the small steps as he tries to get up to the ride, and as he makes it up to the platform I think he’s going to work the controls for it and help get us off, right before he turns away from the control board and reaches for a car with a woman and child in it. They scream and kick out as he grabs at their legs, and as the ride lifts higher, he clings onto them.
The mother and child continue to scream loudly, the mother saying more curse words than she probably ever thought she would in front of her daughter. The kid can’t be more than nine years old, with long blond hair tied into pigtails. She’s small and manages to pull her legs all the way up into the car so they aren’t dangling down anymore, but the mother can’t, and the man continues to grab onto her leg, despite how much she shakes and kicks to get him off it. Her scream hitches up a notch as he buries his face into her ankle and pulls his head back, bringing her clothing away with him.
I gasp as he burrows his face into her leg again. This time an arc of blood sprays out from the wound, and when he pulls back he’s chewing, and fresh blood covers his face. The mother begins to scream loudly, her legs frantically kicking out.
The little girl cries loudly and looks around her before she grabs for the mother’s black handbag. She reaches over the side and swings the bag at the man. He barely flinches and she swings back again. It hits the side of his head, but again he doesn’t seem to notice and continues to pull flesh from her mother’s leg. The little girl drops her legs down and kicks at him hard until one of his hands comes loose from its grip, and he dangles with only one hand.
Realization hits me in the gut, and even though it shouldn’t matter—I shouldn’t care because of what he’s doing—I can’t stop my automatic reaction as I yell, “Wait.”
The little girl stands back up and swings with the bag again as her mother screams in agony.
“Stop, he’ll fall!” I yell louder, knowing I’m being ridiculous—knowing that I should be glad he’ll fall and most likely die. He’s literally eating that woman alive, but instincts are just that: instincts—and you can’t stop your automatic reaction to something. I try to stand up again as our car reaches the peak of the circle, but the bar holds me in place, allowing only a little movement. “Stop!” I holler.
The woman pays me no attention, too trapped within her own pain, but the little girl hears me and looks up at me. Her eyes meet mine and I see pure fear written across her face right before the ride comes to a jittering halt and she slips over the side and falls to the ground with an ear-piercing scream. She hits the ground below with a heavy thump and her screams stop right away. A shudder runs through me as I watch blood seep around her and soak the ground.
Brown Eyes gasps next to me, her hand releasing from mine as she clasps it over her mouth. I try again to stand in my seat, but still get no closer to freedom. The mother is screaming incessantly—from the fact that her daughter just plunged to her death or because of the man currently biting into her ankle, I’m not sure.
“I want to get off now, I want to get off,” Brown Eyes sobs repeatedly.
I look down to the lifeless body of the little girl. It’s raining blood on top of her from her mother’s leg wound as the man continues to bite down on her,
growling, chewing, growling, chewing.
The mother is still screaming endlessly, and I have no idea what to do. I look at the other people on the ride and then to Brown Eyes, but she refuses to look at me.
The ride suddenly shudders and starts again, knocking the man loose from the woman. He falls through the sky and lands right on top of the little girl’s dead body, and everyone around us stops screaming, stops moving, and stares. The man then does the strangest thing: after a moment of stillness, he flips himself slowly around and begins to gorge on the body of the girl.
The mother screams again and Brown Eyes sobs louder, and all I can do is stare in total horror. As our cart gets back to the ground and the other cars move higher up, the ride comes to a stop again and I feel the pitter-patter of something on my shoulder. I touch it with my hand and stare at my fingers when they come away red. Brown Eyes screams next to me and shuffles in her seat to get away from me, but there’s no avoiding the blood that pours down on us from the injured woman. Her cart is at the peak now of the ride now, and showering everyone else on the Ferris wheel with her blood.
I look at the controls and see Daryl standing there, a large two-by-four in his hands, as the man that’s gorging on the girl looks up at him and growls. We’re low down, almost at the platform, and it makes the growl seem louder and more out of place in the fairground, where only ten minutes ago people were screaming and yelling with happiness, and now… now people are running and screaming for their lives.
Daryl chances a glance at me, and I can see the blood covering the front of his sweatshirt and hands.
“What are you waiting for—an invitation? Get off,” he yells to me.
I push at the bar but it still won’t budge. I shake it as violently as possible, creating a clanging noise of metal on metal. The injured man looks across to me. Brown Eyes screams in fear as he climbs back up to his feet and lunges for us.
“The button, hit the release button,” I yell to Daryl, but it comes out more of a strangled scream as the man gets closer, slipping up the small step to the ride and falling over. His jaw hits the ground hard, and even over the noise—the screaming, the music, the gunshots that have erupted around us like the Fourth of July—even with all of that, I hear a loud
crack
as his jaw slams against the metal.
It doesn’t faze him, though: he looks up undeterred, his jaw swinging loosely, and begins to stand back up with a throaty snarl. As his mouth opens wide, Brown Eyes gets a full view of the inside, seeing his shattered and bloodied teeth, and begins to scream louder, struggling to pull herself free from the car.
“The release button, asshole!” I yell at Daryl again.
Instead of hitting the release button, Daryl swings at the man’s head with the two-by-four, slamming it into the side of his skull with a loud
thwack.
The man starts to turn, his arms still reaching for us even as his mouth is snapping at Daryl. But with a second crack of wood upon bone, the man falls down, his body twitching every now and then but thankfully not getting back up. Thankfully? Daryl just killed someone—how can I be thankful for that. As the blood rain continues to drench us, I realize exactly how.
Daryl finally hits the release button and our bar makes a small
clink
sound to show that it is open. Brown Eyes is out and running before I can tell her to wait. Lucky for me, Daryl grabs her around the waist and stops her from running off too far. She screams and hits out at him, but he continues to hold her.
I climb out on shaky legs, cautiously stepping over the still-twitching body of the man and the crushed body of the little girl, and take over from Daryl, letting Brown Eyes cling to me while she sobs. Daryl moves the cars down one by one, releasing everyone until we get to the mother of the little girl. Everyone runs as soon as they get off, but her—she stays seated, her eyes never leaving her daughter. Brown Eyes pushes away from me and steps toward the woman, offering out her hand. The woman takes it and hops out of the car, stumbling on her damaged leg as she puts an arm around Brown Eyes and hops over to her little girl.
“Call an ambulance,” Brown Eyes says softly to me.
“Emma?” she whispers, and I cringe.
When the little girl had no name, it didn’t seem as real, but she’s Emma now: a little girl with blond pigtails who loved the Ferris wheel and tried to save her mom. Now she’s dead, and this shit is real.
“We need to go, man.” Daryl tugs on my elbow.
I pull out my phone and look at him, swallowing back horror and fear. “The girl,” I say quietly. “She needs an ambulance.”
Daryl looks around us with a shrug. “It’s Armageddon, man, no one’s answering that anytime soon.” He nods toward my phone and then looks around us.
Everywhere has gone quiet, apart from the music blaring from each ride. You would think it was just a real quiet night at the fair, but looking closer, that’s not true. Blood smears several of the tents that house attractions, bodies lie prone on the ground. The police cars lights still flash, illuminating several bodies close by them.
I look back at Brown Eyes and the woman with Emma. I watch the woman gently push the hair back from Emma’s face to reveal purple bruising, and blood seeping from her nose and eyes—the same eyes that stare up at nothing. The woman cries louder and Brown Eyes looks to me to do something, but there’s nothing I can do. Emma is dead, and it’s partly my fault. If I hadn’t shouted at her to stop, maybe she never would have fallen.
The woman looks pale and shaky, tears free-flowing down her cheeks. Blood has pooled around her from her injured leg, and I take a moment to really look at how bad it is and wince. The man has bitten right through her thin tights and into the fleshy part of her calf muscle. I’m almost certain that I can see bone, and I gulp and look back at Daryl. He’s picked up his two-by-four again and is looking around us anxiously.
I step forward to get Brown Eyes to come with us and realize that I don’t actually know her name. If I could hashtag this, I would: #awkward. I’m about to reach out and touch her shoulder when I hear someone close by.
“We gotta go, Matty,” Daryl says behind me. His voice sounds strong, yet I can hear the slight quaver to it.
“What’s going on?” Brown Eyes looks up at me from her place next to the woman, blood from the bodies pooling around her knees. “Why would that guy do this? Where are the police?” She looks from me to Daryl and back again before slowly standing and looking around us. “What’s wrong with everyone?” Her voice sounds desperate, like she’s begging me to answer her, to give her the answers that she needs.
Her face holds the same expression I presume mine did several seconds ago as she begins to notice the lack of people and the blood everywhere. When her eyes come back to meet mine there’s a determination there.
“I need to get home to my parents,” she says and stands. She looks down at the woman. “I’m sorry. We’ll bring back help, I promise.” She walks away without a second glance.
I stare after her in amazement, admiring her strength of character but confused as to how she could just turn it all off like that. Daryl casts a look back at the woman, who’s still crying over the body of her child, before following me. There’s nothing we can do for her now but go get help—if there’s any help left to find.