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  Scream Ride

  D. I. Russell

  FIRST EDITION

  Scream Ride

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This work, including all characters, names, and places:

  Copyright 2020 D. I. Russell

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of both the publisher and author.

  About the Author

  Australian Shadows Award finalist D. I. Russell has been published since 2003 and featured in publications such as Dead on Arrival 2 and 3, Pseudopod, and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He was also the former vice-president of the Australian Horror Writers' Association and was a special guest editor of Midnight Echo.

  Contact the author at [email protected], and sign up for the monthly newsletter right here.

  Also available:

  Samhane

  Mother’s Boys

  Tricks, Mischief & Mayhem

  The Collector Book 1: Mana Leak

  Entertaining Demons

  Mind Terrors:

  Outside

  Critique

  For Tobin Ian Russell

  PROLOGUE

  Never approach the blank page lightly. The paper is a window to the mind, a cage of the imagination.

  Sampling the smoothness, his fingertip slid down the pristine white sheet and travelled along the lip at the base of the easel. Selecting a worn pencil, he returned to the blank page, the lead hovering. There is nothing more horrific than the imagination, he pondered. No matter how foul an act, imagination can always amplify the horror.

  A quick straight line to mark the paper.

  An axe? A knife? Perhaps a vein stretched from the eye socket of a corpse? He could draw all these things and more.

  Yes, never approach the blank page lightly, as you never know what it might contain, and what it might unleash on an unsuspecting world.

  He set to work. He had a deadline.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1.

  The tall man stared at her from the shadow of the doorway.

  Laurie slowed her pace and squinted in the bright mid-afternoon sun. The heat baked the road. Through shimmering waves of distorted air, the slumped man in the tattered, dirty coat gazed at her. The high buildings on each side of the road seemed to press forwards, trapping her within the street.

  Ahead, her father flustered with a map, marching on.

  “I know it’s around here somewhere,” he said, folding the paper. “I saw it in the brochure!”

  “Calm down, Hank,” said Laurie’s mother. Her green shellsuit glittered like an emerald. “You’re going to have a turn in this heat.”

  “Thank you, Pamela,” he snapped and wiped his forehead. Sweat patches had already formed on his Hawaiian shirt, darkening the obscene colours. “Goddamn, it’s hot.”

  Laurie cast the tall man a final glance and ran to her parents. She grabbed her dad’s hot, slick hand.

  “This is Australia,” Pamela said. “It’s meant to be hot.”

  “Not this damn hot,” said Hank and huffed.

  Pamela laughed, a shrill dentist’s drill sound. A shiver shot up Laurie’s spine.

  “It’s not that bad. You’re from Wisconsin, dear. Everywhere is hot.”

  Again, that laugh.

  “Surprised you’re not cooking like a baked potato in that thing,” Hank muttered. He returned to the map.

  Laurie glanced back over her shoulder.

  The doorway was empty.

  About to turn away, she spied a grey hand with long, hooked fingers curl around the frame.

  A lean face peered out from the dark. Framed with lank black hair, the man’s face studied her with intense, red-rimmed eyes. Maybe he was drunk. It would explain the stagger and the way he stared.

  Laurie tugged her father’s hand.

  “Daddy, that man keeps looking at me.”

  Hank slowed his pace and tucked the creased map under his arm. He narrowed his eyes and looked around. “Man? What man, sweetie?”

  “Behind us.”

  Hank turned his head.

  “Hmm. I’m sure he’s not looking at you.” He faced his wife. “You’d think they’d keep the riffraff out of a place like this, wouldn’t you? I mean, the amount I paid just for one day—”

  “Hank.” Pamela placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t stress. Let’s try and enjoy the rest of the day.” She checked her watch. The ornate gold and inset diamonds winked. “It’s a little after three, so it should start cooling off a little. This is a different country, right, chick?” She stroked her daughter’s head.

  “Right,” said Laurie.

  “So things will be a bit different. The weather for one. A lot of places are hotter than Wisconsin, dear. You act like you’ve never been out of state! And what else do they do here…they…hey, remember we saw that couple in McDonalds? They weren’t wearing any shoes, even when they used the bathroom!”

  “Yeah,” said Hank, wrinkling his nose. “Can’t forget that one. They all do it.”

  “Look, if you’re hot, there’s a burger place further up. You wanna grab a Coke?”

  Hank grinned. “And the rest, if I can keep my shoes on. I’m starved. Must be this heat burning up my calories.”

  Her father tugged her hand, and Laurie jerked forwards. She quickened her pace to keep step.

  The street broadened into a small square, each side crammed with souvenir shops and cafes. In the burger joint, people seated by the window shoveled fries into their mouths and tore chunks from their burgers and nuggets. Laurie’s stomach rumbled. Customers waited in haphazard lines up to the counter, and workers darted back and forth, loading brown trays with food.

  “Hope they have good air conditioning,” said Hank, striding up to the double glass doors and pushing them wide.

  A blast of cold air chilled Laurie’s face and arms, and she breathed deep, refreshing her lungs from the dry heat. She rubbed her growling stomach as a long shadow fell over her.

  The filthy man stood on the other side of the glass. His arms hung by his sides; hands hidden by the sleeves of his mud-streaked coat. He seemed out of place in the bright sun, belonging more in the dark places like under a bridge with the rest of the trolls. Laurie tried to imagine how hot he must be in the thick coat.

  “Laurie?” pressed her mother. “Your father’s having the large upgrade. Do you want the same?”

  The man tilted his head to the side, surveying her. With his skin a crusty grey, Laurie wondered if he had some kind of disease. Surely the restaurant wouldn’t let someone in if they had a disease. He stared at her, his eyes the colour of bile.

  “Dad,” she said. “That man…he’s…looking at me again.” She pulled on his shirt.

  “Laurie,” he moaned, studying the illuminated menu over the counter. “Can you knock it off with this stalker thing? You think everyone’s looking at you.” He licked his lips. “Those subs look good. Pam, what do you think?”

  “Whoa!” someone cried from the left. A teenage boy stood up and leaned over his meal. He pointed out through the window. “Check him out!”

  Laurie peeked around her father’s gut, sure someone else had seen the weird guy at the window.

  The boy pointed in the opposite direction, to a figure walking across the square towards them. Short, stocky, and bald, the man suffered from a harsh limp and dragged
his right leg along the ground. His left hand seemed to cut circles in the air with each step, as if grabbing onto some invisible bar to pull himself along.

  “That guy’s so munted up,” said the boy and laughed. He sat back and picked up his burger.

  Laurie looked closer at the bald man as he neared.

  “My God,” said her mother, clutching her husband. “Look at that man. His…his arm’s gone! You don’t think…”

  Screams erupted from the corner.

  Whispers and murmurs swept through the people waiting to be served, and they jostled for a glimpse of the commotion.

  A group of girls scrambled away from their table positioned by the window, all of them screeching and wide-eyed.

  A hunched woman stood on the other side of the glass. She pressed her pale hands against the window and opened her mouth. Drool spilled over her bared teeth and lips and down her chin.

  “Daddy?” asked Laurie. “What’s happening?”

  “I…I don’t know.” He slid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight.

  The customers edged back away from the doors. Those seated by the windows jumped from their fixed plastic chairs and joined the mass of standing bodies.

  About a dozen of slow, shuffling bodies had filled the square, every one of them aiming for the restaurant. The one-armed bald man had reached the far side, leaving a glistening crimson trail across the flagstones. Blood still leaked from his open stump, pooling around his scuffed boots. He banged on the glass. It shook within its frame.

  A few people screamed, and a baby started to bawl.

  Laurie heard more panicked voices through the crowd.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Have you seen how many of them are out there?”

  “Where’s Billy? Oh my God, Dean, he was just here. Where’s Billy?”

  The drooling woman licked the window while watching the occupants. Her hands, hooked into claws, scratched at the glass.

  Laurie glanced from the woman to the bald man and then to her own tall follower. He remained motionless, glaring at her.

  “Daddy…” she wailed.

  Pamela clutched her husband, her garish earrings swaying like chandeliers in an earthquake.

  “Hank,” she squeaked. “What do we do?”

  The group closed in on the restaurant. Those that weren’t already by the windows weren’t far behind.

  One figure, a young man with a nasty-looking face wound and vacant white eyes, approached the doors.

  Her father jumped forwards with surprising agility and grabbed a stool.

  The young man with the deep face wound reached for the door with a bloody hand.

  Laurie’s father roared and slammed the stool down. The metal legs caught in the bars on each door. He stepped back.

  The injured man seized a bar on the outside and pulled. The stool wobbled but held both doors closed.

  “They’re everywhere!”

  “We can’t get out…”

  “You see what that man did? He locked the door!”

  “Where’s my Billy? Billy!”

  Hank rushed back and picked up Laurie. She hugged him close. Her mother huddled in against them.

  “Hey,” bellowed a deep voice. Something banged inside the restaurant. “Get this open. Get this fucking thing open!”

  With her father holding her up, Laurie looked over the head of the other customers and saw a heavily muscled man with a white vest and extensive tattoos strike the staff door beside the counter.

  “I said open this fucking door now!”

  The staff refused to move from their small group and stared at him. One of the kitchen staff emerged from the back. He frowned. “What’s going on?”

  “Open up and let us out,” snarled the man and kicked the door.

  The crowd, having retreated from the doors and windows, crammed back against the counter. Someone howled in pain.

  “Climb over the counter,” ordered the man. “They can’t stop us all!”

  Outside, the lurching figures had the restaurant surrounded. They beat their hands against the glass, and Face Wound continued to rattle the doors.

  The tall man in the dirty coat hadn’t moved an inch.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” said Laurie’s father into her ear. He retreated further from the doors, his back thumping into the first line of the struggling crowd.

  Laurie watched the tall man, her gaze locked with his. She wondered how this day on her vacation, this simple, normal day, had suddenly turned into a nightmare. Her dad said that monsters were made up for films and books and weren’t real. Yet here they were, pounding the windows and pulling at the doors…

  The tall man opened his mouth and coughed, spraying a geyser of dark blood onto the glass.

  Laurie’s resolve broke and she burst into tears, burying her face into the bright fabric covering her father’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m going to get you and your mother out of here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Hank!” her mother screeched.

  The man peered through the blood on the window. His lips curled back to show yellowed teeth. He moaned, lifted his hand and closed his fingers into a fist.

  “No,” said her father, pushing back further. “Oh no…”

  The man drove his fist forward, and the window shattered in twinkling confetti about him. He stepped forward through the empty pane, his boots crunching the almost powdery glass on the floor.

  Screams and shouts erupted through the restaurant, and people made a mad scramble to climb over the counter. Children wailed. More cries of pain rang out as people were sandwiched between the frantic mob and the unforgiving counter.

  Laurie wept and gripped her father tighter.

  The decrepit man, staying in the remains of the destroyed window, peered left and right. He swallowed and lowered his hands.

  “Er…?”

  Moving with uncanny speed compared to his lumbering walk, he looked back to the other shambling bodies at the windows. He shrugged.

  A yell from the crowd drowned out the other cries, and a man in jeans and a black t-shirt ran forwards, brandishing one of the stools. He held it over his head.

  The tall man stepped back, lifting his hands in defence.

  “Wait!” screamed a voice from outside. A short man in glasses ran across the square waving his hands. His tie fluttered behind him like a short kite tail. “Wait!”

  The hero from the crowd burst across the dining area in seconds and brought the stood down hard on the tall man’s head. The man grunted, toppling back through the smashed window.

  The rest of the damaged group outside stopped and exchanged glances. The bald man fidgeted with his bleeding arm.

  “Wait!”

  Arriving at this side of the square, the guy in the glasses darted around the injured man and dashed through the broken window. He wheezed and dragged in a deep breath. “Please…just…wait,” he gasped and held up his hands.

  The shouts and cries subsided. Laurie lifted her head and saw that all eyes were on the man in the clean shirt and tie.

  “If…” He swallowed and straightened up. “If I can have your attention.” He fixed his tie. “This has been a test simulation of the new Nearly Departed interactive attraction, scheduled for this Halloween…”

  “My head,” wailed the tall man, staggering back and rubbing his scalp. “My fucking head…”

  “Adventure Point thanks you for your participation. Please enjoy the rest of your day.”

  Silence had descended on the restaurant.

  Laurie wiped her eyes. “Daddy,” she whispered. “I want to go home.”

  “Simulation?” said her father. The sound of sobbing rose through the restaurant. Laurie’s mother, for one, wailed and hid her face in her hands. “A simulation, you say?”

  He lowered Laurie to the floor. She stood on unsteady legs.

  “What the fuck?”
yelled a man at the back. Laurie thought it might be the man with the tattoos.

  Her father broke away from his weeping wife and stepped forwards, raising his fists. “I’ll give you a simulation, you piece of shit…”

  Chapter 2.

  Napier sat and pulled open his desk drawer. His hand hovered over the neatly arranged contents, and he selected a small mirror. He lifted it free and studied his reflection in the bright, unspoiled light pouring in.

  “Ah, shit.”

  His lower lip was swollen as an over-stuffed sausage and still seemed to glow a furious red, but the small cut had thankfully stopped leaking. He prodded it with his tongue and winced. He never thought of himself as handsome or good-looking, but the injury ruined the order of his face. His short-cut hair and custom glasses created an image he chose to portray: an image of efficiency and professionalism. Now he had the mouth of a brawler.

  Napier leaned back in his seat, keen for a moment of respite from the glare of his monitor, and in particular, the mess strewn over his desk. The new project had threatened to drown him in bad ideas and ill planned proposals. The young executive hadn’t anticipated the struggles that lay ahead the day Dallas had shoved the contract under his noise. The promotion he’d worked so hard for these last few years. He’d signed in a heartbeat. David Napier: Events Manager.

  The carriages of their famous rollercoaster, The Black Whip, rattled over a peak and plunged the riders down a steep descent on the other side. Napier barely heard the screams anymore.

  Come on, he told himself. This isn’t like you. A clean workstation is a happy workstation.

  Dozens of dog-eared comic books lay scattered, short piles having been toppled and fanned across the wood. These were dotted with several toys and figurines based on the characters within the pages. A couple of empty burger boxes from the park’s many fast food outlets had accrued, with no room for them in his overflowing bin. No time to prepare his usual salad lunches, what with the extra work hours the project had demanded.