LITTLE AMUSEMENT PARK OF HORRORS
BY
NORM
E.
ONE:
JUNE
21
“What a day,” Carrie Plummer said to her friends as they strolled through
the midway of
Pirate’s
in years.”
“We’re glad to have shared it with you, Carrie,” Melanie Grossman told her,
“I
told you you’d like it here.”
“And you were right, Melanie,” Carrie beamed. Behind her, Emily Young and
Audrey
Klaussen nodded their approval. The four sorority sisters at North
their freshman
year, and had planned on doing something together over the
summer. Melanie
had suggested them coming down to
weeks. As
Pirate’s Cove had been right up the street from where she lived,
it was a
logical choice on the itinerary. Carrie, who’d always loved
amusement parks
and was studying to be a roller coaster designer at North
Central,
had eaten the park and its seven coasters right up. “In fact,” she
continued, “If
it’s okay with you girls, I’d like to come back again
tomorrow.”
“Does it have to be tomorrow, Carrie?” Audrey raised her eyebrows, “The
rest of us
would like to do other things while we’re here.”
“So would I, Audrey, but, well, I just love it here,” Carrie said, “And
since we didn’t
hit anything today…”
“You would miss out on the beach, which if I’m not mistaken you said was
also high on
your list,” Emily told her.
“Okay, you guys win,” Carrie conceded, “You’re right, Emily, I have been
wanting that
day on the beach. If it‘s okay, though, I‘d like to go through
the funhouse
one more time.”
“It is getting late,” Audrey checked her watch, “And we did say we’d be
back before
dark.”
“Tell you what, Carrie,” Melanie told her friend, “You can go through the
funhouse again,
and when your done, you know where our bikes are, you can
just follow the
way home, and we’ll be there for some smores on the beach.
How’s
that sound?”
“Great,” Carrie smiled, “I’ll catch up with you guys later then.”
“Enjoy it Carrie,” Melanie said in part as she and the others walked for
the exit.
Carrie gave them a parting look and headed for the funhouse.
Melanie
had always been her best friend of the clique: generous,
understanding,
and always willing ot compromise in a heated debate.
As the park was starting to wind down somewhat for the evening, the line
for the
funhouse was relatively short. Carrie showed the man on duty her
Pirate’s
Pass, guaranteeing free entry, and climbed through the big clown
face into the
funhouse.
The vacation had been great so far. She and her friends had taken in
everything that
Jerry
and Jonathan, Melanie’s former neighbors when she was growing up who’d
come back for
the summer to work at the flea market up the road. A friendly
rivalry had
developed between them for the girls’ affections. Although
Carrie
found both of them nice, Jerry had taken her heart,
and the two of
them had spent
the previous night on the beach watching the sunset…but
nothing more
yet. Carrie was hoping more would come out of the relationship
before the
vacation ended, though.
Carrie entered the Barrel of Fun. By now she was used to the whirling
effect of the
big round wheel, and was able to stay on her feet as she
passed through.
Next came one of three tunnels. She took the one on the
far left and
found herself in a mirror maze. She giggled at the effect of
herself all
over the place.
It was as Carrie turned the corner that she saw something strange lying on
the floor.
Puzzled, she bent down and examined it closer. It was a large
bag inscribed
FIRST FLORIDIAN NATIONAL BANK, with several fifty dollar bills
sticking out of
it. Carrie remembered reading something in the paper about
that particular
bank being robbed about a week before she and her friends
had arrived.
“Why would this be here?” she asked to herself out loud.
She noticed one of the dollars was stuck partially under a mirror to her
left. Acting on
a quick thought, she pushed against the mirror with all her
strength. It
opened, and Carrie tumbled forward to the floor. And then,
before she
could recover, a hand was clamped over her mouth from the
darkness that
completely engulf the space behind the mirror, and she was
pulled roughly
to her feet. “What have we here?” asked a deep,
dangerous-sounding
man’s voice, “Another Nancy Drew wannabe? You should
have known
better than to let curiosity get the better of you.”
Carrie felt a heavy cloth being tied over her eyes. “Start walking,” her
captor ordered
and dragged her up a long corridor. Unable to see where she
was going, she
stumbled twice in the dark, and had to be hauled without any
courtesy back
to her feet. Finally, he directed her to a stop. The echoes
of their
footsteps told Carrie they were now in some larger chamber. She
could hear the
sounds of objects being moved around and tossed in heaps. “I
found this one
trying to break in through the entrance,” her captor told
somebody, “What
should I do with her?”
“Let me go you big brute!” Carrie shouted, her mouth free from his hand
now. She
squirmed around trying to squeeze out of his grasp, but his arms
were like iron.
“Sorry my dear, we can’t do that,” said the voice of a more
formal-sounding
man. Carrie
felt an arm on her face. She jerked her head away. “You’ve
seen too much,”
he continued, “So you’re going to be our hostage for the
next few days.
And seeing what a beautiful young woman you are, you may
even fetch a
nice ransom. What’s your name?”
“I won’t give you the honor of…!” Carrie started to say, but her captor’s
hand abruptly
grabbed hold of her long blond hair and gave it a harsh and
prolonged tug.
“OWW!” she screamed, “All right, my name’s Carrie, Carrie
Plummer!”
“What’s your address and phone number?”
“
“Did you get that, Jim?” the leader said to somebody. Carrie regretted
being
blindfolded and not having more control over the situation. “Well
Carrie,
don’t you worry, because we’re going to take very good care of you
from now on,”
the leader said.
“You won’t keep me like this!” Carrie shouted, twisting around to get
loose, “My
friends will be coming through the funhouse any minute now. I
told them I’d be
in here, and if I’m not….”
“Gag Carrie, Rocky,” the leader said.
“Don’t you…MMMMMPPPPHHH!!” a thick wad of cloth padding was stuffed hard
into Carrie’s
mouth. She tried to spit it out, but it was too well
entrenched. In
the meantime, a heavy cloth was tied around her head to hold
it in place.
“Much better,” the leader said. “Now take her down the hall into number
three and make
sure she can’t be of any further trouble to us.”
“Right,” Carrie’s captor put her arms in a painful hammerlock behind her
back and
marched her across the chamber and up another corridor. Carrie
tried to clear
her head and think rationally against the terror that was
building. Where
were they going to take her? And when would her friends
notice she
wasn’t coming back? And if they did, would they be able to come
back to the
park to look for her?
Her captor stopped. Carrie heard a heavy steel oaken door open. “Leo, get
as much of the
rope as you can, we’ve got to restraint her good and tight,”
he could be
heard calling to another thug. Carrie was pushed forward into
“number three.” After a few feet, she was parked down in a
high throne-like
chair. She
barely had time to get her bearings when she felt the first
ropes binding
each of her wrists to the chair’s arms. She struggled
fiercely to
resist this, but another hand around her throat and what felt
like a knife to
her temple convinced her to end all resistance. More ropes
bound her
forearms to the chair’s arms, followed by her elbows. The ropes
were very heavy
duty and dug very deeply into Carrie. She moaned into her
gag as more of
the ropes were used to bind her back to the chair just below
her shoulders.
Another batch of ropes went across the middle of her chest.
Yet
another segment secured her waist to the chair’s sturdy back. With
Carrie’s
upper body firmly secured, work began on her lower body. First the
ropes were tied
tightly above and below her knees. Then her ankles were
bound, pulled
hard to the right, and fastened to the chair’s right leg.
Next
her thighs were tightly secured to the chair’s legs. As a clincher,
her upper legs
were tied to the seat of the chair.
But just as Carrie was about to breathe a sigh of relief, her binding
continued.
First a good deal of rope was tied in a diagonal pattern from
her left
shoulder down to her right hip, further securing her back to the
chair. Then the
process was repeated from her right shoulder to her left
hip. What
seemed like infinite excess rope was used to even more firmly
secure her arms
to the chair’s arms and her legs to the chair’s legs.
Finally the tying came to an end. Their was an uneasy silence as the men
apparently
examined their work. “And that my dear should do you quite
well,” said
Rocky, “But before we leave, we wouldn't want you to catch a death
of cold in this
drafty place, so…”
The next thing Carrie knew, a large sheet of some kind was pulled over top
of her,
completely covering her. To someone casually looking in, she’d
probably look
like a ghost, she thought ruefully, which didn’t help if
people would be
specifically looking for her.
“Enjoy that chair,” Leo piped up, “Because you’ll be in it for at least the
next four days.
He and his associate sniggered. Carrie heard them walk
away, and
moments later the door slammed shut and a key turned in the lock.
Her
heart sank. She was all alone and helpless, with no clue where she was,
and her friends
had no idea of the danger she was in.