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I chewed slowly, trying not to gag. Dinner that night was my mom’s specialty: mac n’ cheese made with Velveeta cheese and a can of tomato soup, melted together using the microwave. It was incredibly rich, and the mass of cheese and pasta seemed to stick in my throat. I glanced up. My mom’s new squeeze was chewing enthusiastically. Todd smiled at me hopefully. He was in his early fifties, with slight streaks of gray at his temples. He had slicked his hair back, parting it neatly at the side of his head. He was dressed in a mustard-colored oxford shirt with an awful maroon and yellow paisley tie. I pressed the corners of my mouth upward in a forced half-smile.
This was typical. My mom would bring a guy home, and he’d spend the whole time trying to get on my good side. It would have been more effective if they just left me alone. I would really love that, to be honest. I swallowed my over-chewed mouthful.
“So, what do you do for a living, Laney?” he asked me. He looked washed out in the bright fluorescent lighting of my mom’s kitchen, his skin pale and bluish and his shaved beard still showing up black against his skin.
“I work at the grocery store,” I mumbled.
“That’s interesting,” he said, even though it really wasn’t. It was, quite possibly the worst job in the world, aside from maybe a mortician or a garbage collector. People always went to buy their groceries when they were severely unhappy. Who knew?
“Not really,” I replied drily. My mom shot me a look. Her bleached blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a style that had last been in fashion in the sixties. She was wearing a frosty pink lipstick and her eyes were lined heavily in dark blue liner. “What do you do, Todd?” I looked at my mom, eyebrows raised, as if to say: Hey, I tried. I wasn’t the one asking the wrong questions.
“I’m a banker,” he replied. Ah, jeez, I thought. In that tie? I’d thought that bankers were, like clean-cut and stuff.
“Oh, wow,” I said bluntly before taking another glutinous mouthful. I hoped he wouldn’t continue, but he did.
“Yeah,” he went on eagerly, as if I’d asked him to tell me all about it. “I help people open up accounts, and choose investments.” I nodded, eyebrows raised as I chewed.
“Tell her about the condo down at the shore that you just purchased, Todd,” my mom said excitedly, placing one of her perfectly manicured hands on Todd’s wrist in a way that made me wonder if the beach condo was the reason that she was dating him. As my mother’s coral pink nails ran over his skin, Todd launched into a full monologue about his recent acquisition. It almost sounded as if he were trying to sell it to me. I began to shovel my dinner into my mouth in earnest. I wasn’t buying. I needed to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.
“It’s got a full jacuzzi tub,” Todd was saying as I frantically swallowed my last bite. I chased it down quickly with a gulp of water and stood up. Todd’s eyes widened in mild surprise.
“I’ve got to go,” I explained curtly. “Dinner was good, Mom. It was nice meeting you, Todd.”
“Uh, you, too,” he replied. He was giving me a deer in the headlights look. I glanced at my mother, who was biting her lip. She was wearing a pale pink halter top that was lightyears too young for her. She was the mother of a twenty-four-year-old. I should be wearing something like that. Instead, I was dressed in a skin-tight black mini dress and fishnets. I wore knee-high black leather boots, which had taken me ages to save up for.
I turned in the tiny kitchen and placed my bowl in the sink. On my way out, I squeezed my mother’s shoulder. I loved her, but our problem was that we had never understood each other. In the darkened hallway of our apartment, I grabbed my faux leather jacket with the metal studs on the lapels and pulled it on. I could hear my mom and Todd stage-whispering to each other through the open door of the kitchen.
“She’s been bitter since we couldn’t afford college,” she was explaining to him in what she assumed was an undertone. Her voice was husky from years of smoking cigarettes. I bit my lip. That was a little bit too true. More truth than I felt that Todd deserved. He was, after all, not going to be permanent. My mother had never been able to hold down a relationship—not ever. She had, from the age of fourteen, gone through a steady stream of boyfriends, my own father included. I was the only permanent fixture, which was lucky for me. Dad was kind of a deadbeat.
I opened the door to the apartment and let myself out, locking the door behind me. Our apartment complex was seedy, at best. It was a dull taupe concrete monstrosity, and it had sad-looking bushes beside the walkways. They had been manicured until they almost lacked any leaves, and were in vague square formations. I passed the pool, which had garbage floating in it, the scent of chlorine emanating strongly off its aqua blue waves.
It was early enough that the trains were still running. They would stop running at midnight. Unless the party totally sucked, I’d definitely have to take a taxi home, which was annoying because the drivers would take me through the city instead of on the highway, driving slowly through traffic, squeezing every last cent out of me. They’d never listen, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise.
When I got on the train, it was packed, and I had to stand, one hand in my pocket, the other on the handrail. A woman near to me was talking loudly into her cellphone. She was twisting her hair violently. It was obvious that it was her habit when agitated—her hair was in tight corkscrews near her neck.
“He tried to choke me,” she was saying for everyone to hear. “And now he’s going for full custody.” Ugh. I did not want to hear this. I’d lived through several of my mom’s abusive exes. I pulled my earbuds out of my pocket, placing them in my ears and turned my music on. Alt-rock blasted through my headphones, drowning out the conversation. I looked up at the bright lights. They flickered as the train rocked back and forth as it barreled along the tracks. I swayed on my feet, leaning as the train took a turn.
At each stop, I watched the people getting on, placing their metro cards over the pad. I couldn’t hear the beep that accompanied a successful transaction, but I could see the brief look of relief that went with it. When my stop finally came up, I walked briskly off, lightly jostling people as I passed them. I headed down the streets, which were lit golden by the streetlamps. I had traveled just outside of the Boston city limits. I didn’t usually come this far out. There were many people still out, and there was a large crowd of people milling about the fence that lined the abandoned theme park. The sign, which had fallen into disrepair, was hanging sideways off the posts upon which it had once hung.
The sign read in faded red letters on a blue background: Bowcraft Amusement Park. There were large, round white lights that ran around the edges of the sign. In the distance, I could see the old Ferris Wheel, which had started to break down, and the abandoned roller coaster tracks. The Ferris Wheel was turning slowly. The cars that were still affixed to it were rocking wildly. As I watched, one fell off its hinges, tumbling to the ground. Within the overgrown grass, large fiberglass forms lurked: a faded pink Tyrannosaurus Rex, an orange giraffe, a blue elephant. I had never seen the place lit up before, but tonight, it was. The park had closed when I was a small child. My mother did own a few faded snapshots of me as a three-year-old, my hair in blonde pigtails as I sat on a carousel horse, scowling at the camera. One of them was even framed—it sat on the table by the apartment door in a tarnished copper frame.
The lights made the abandoned air of the place even more pronounced. They highlighted the things that should have been kept in the shadows, left to finish falling apart in peace. It was almost a violation to have it all lit up. It was creepy, and it was perfect for an underground black metal rave. I got goosebumps raising all across my flesh as I walked over to the line that was forming. I was totally stoked for this.
“Hurry up!” the guy at the fence yelled. “We don’t want the cops to come asking questions.” I frowned. Wouldn’t the cops ask questions about all of the lights suddenly on at an abandoned amusement park? His rushed demeanor was a bit bizarre. That should have been a red flag.
I stood in line, glancing around for my friends. We had planned to meet up at the party. We hadn’t considered how crowded it would be. It was definitely going to be a bit difficult to find them. Everybody that I saw dressed exactly like we did. The guy who was standing at the place in the chain-link fence where it had been cut with bolt cutters was moving people through quickly. When it was my turn, he put out his arm to stop me.
“Hold up, missy,” he said. “I’m going to need to see some ID.” I looked at him with wide eyes and sighed heavily in frustration.
“Seriously?” I looked at his stubble-covered face. He nodded. “You’re holding an illegal rave, and you have to check ID?”
“Hurry up,” he insisted gruffly. “I’ve got to move people off the street fast. We can’t be any more illegal than we already are.” I looked at him, my eyebrow raised. He definitely wasn’t the type of person to mess with—he had full tattoo sleeves that even ran up around his neck. He had several gold teeth, and a nasty scar running across his cheek. Rolling my eyes and sighing in frustration, I pulled my wallet out of my pocket. Opening it, I held it up so that he could see my ID. He shone a tiny black Maglite flashlight on it and nodded.
“Dude,” he said, eyebrow raised. “You do not look twenty-four.”
“I get that all of the time,” I muttered.
“Come on in,” he said, holding the jagged edge of the chain-link fence open for me. Silently, I walked in, placing my wallet back into my pocket as I followed the steady stream of people through the overgrown grass. People jostled me as I walked. They were laughing and talking. It seemed as though everyone else had been smart enough to meet up with their friends before showing up. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to keep it cool.
The old theme park had electricity running to all of it, it seemed. All the lights were lit up. It was super bright. I squinted in the sudden glare. There was metal music playing over the speakers. As I stood there, I remembered it from when I was younger, when it had been functioning as an actual theme park and not a playground for goth kids. In comparison, it seemed half-haunted, with its state of disarray.
The fun house was open, and people were crowding around the entrance like a murder of black crows, and some of the rides were running, even though no one was on them. Safety issues, I supposed. As they were running, the cars seemed to be rattling off their rails. The carousel was running, goth kids astride the horses in odd, contorted poses. The music was slowed down, warped. It was strange and beautiful at the same time. The crowd was steadily streaming through the park. I let myself be pushed along with it, from time to time, glancing around for Jenny’s hot pink hair, or Talia’s blue-streaked raven black bob. A lot of other people had the exact same hair styles, though. Most likely in leather and fishnets, Jenny and Talia blended in, probably just as well as I did. The flow of foot traffic was headed toward the swimming pool, which was housed in a large cement building.
I entered the old swimming pool. An enormous mass of dancing, writhing bodies was inside. Dark metal music was blaring over the speakers, which had been set up with a DJ booth to the side. There was a bar, but the crowd around it was four people deep. I looked around for my friends. I saw none of them, so I pulled out my phone, sending Jenny a text. I kept my phone out as I searched the crowd. No one looked familiar, even though they all seemed to be my kind of people—leather, dark makeup, safety pins and fishnets.
The music was good—and I began to dance to it. I figured, since I couldn’t find my friends, I might as well enjoy it. A guy with a lime green mohawk was dancing by himself, so I might as well, too. The crowd wrapped around me, welcoming me as their own. A girl with bleached out hair and a pentacle that looked like it had been painted onto a black racerback tank top was pushed up against me. She smiled at me, although it didn’t reach her kohl-lined eyes. This was a goth-punk type thing. We might be glad to see you, but by nature, we’re a bit dark. It felt like I was swimming in the ocean, people moving slowly around me. A guy bumped up against me. He turned, and I found myself looking into the most piercing blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“Sorry,” he yelled, and I could barely hear it over the music. I shrugged in response. He cocked his eyebrows and said something else that I didn’t catch.
“What?” He leaned in, putting his lips up next to my ear.
“Do you want to dance?”
“I already am!” I smiled. I loved throwing people off. He stood staring at me, and then went to turn away. I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back toward me as I laughed. He smiled, getting my joke. Usually, people would be offended. I was impressed. I glanced him over—black leather vest with studs, artfully torn jeans, and a black concert t-shirt for a metal band. He had sleeves of tattoos snaking up his arms. He wore a pair of black Doc Martens with bright scarlet laces.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and smiled as I looked into his super blue eyes. We danced, our bodies intertwining. I turned away from him, placing my hand on his cheek as I swayed my hips from side-to-side. His hands were on my hips, and his lips were right up against my ear. Just before the music cut, I heard him yell to me.
“You need to get out of here,” he said.
“Why?” I yelled back, frowning.
“They’re going to kill you.”
I turned, frowning, thinking that he was making a bad joke, but he looked worried. Just then, the music cut, and everything went dark. There was a momentary pause, and then I heard people screaming around me. In the darkness, his hand gripped mine, and he began to pull me along, but we were going against the crowd. Bodies slammed into me as people ran for the exits. My heart was pounding in my chest. Was I in danger? Who was this guy that I was trusting with my life?
Suddenly, in the darkness, flames spouted high up against the far wall. I froze in fear, my sweaty hand slipping from the guy’s grasp. It was a dragon. A real one, breathing fire. There was another, this one on the other side of the room. People pushing past me began to push me backward. In the light from the twin fires, I could see people around me, some were running for the door, and others were watching, just like me. Part of my mind was thinking: dragons don’t exist. The other part was thinking: You are looking at real dragons.
Suddenly, something hit me on the head from behind. Everything—the crowd, the dragons, faded to complete black as I felt my body crumple to the floor like a rag doll.