Scared yet?!    by: Peter A. Mulder, January 2007

 

 The funhouse (if FUNhouse was a good name for it) stood at the back of the meadow where the circus had taken it's resendence for this weekend. It was the perfect place for something as freaky as this, right between the twisted old trees that had creeped up from beyond the border between the field and the dark woods behind it. What also helped to set the mood, was the darkening shadow of the massive circus-tent, which completely obscured this far-away corner from the sight of the rest of ‘Old man Jacobs' cow-maddow’. We were entering an entirely different world, and we were all alone!

...Or were we?!  

                   

 

Old man Jacobs himself was ‘a bit of a meany’ most of the year, but he always made his field (ordinarily full of cows) freely available for the carnival. It was even rumored that he himself cleaned up most of the cowdung the night before the circus would arrive, but no one ever saw him do that. But he wás present during the fun-filled days and fireworks-filled evenings of the fair, smiling his toothless grin at everybody who entered the gate to his field. Like a proud host, he himself would welcome you to his field and ‘his fun-fair’.

The fun-fair was being held every year in the second weekend of September (something to do with the founding of our little town hundreds of years ago), and was ‘just what the(school)doctor ordered’ after the first two weeks of classes of the new schoolyear. Always like the last desperetly fun-stacked days of the summer really, before schoolwork would realy start in honest. The fair opened, as always, on the Friday evening. ...Which happened to be Friday the 13^th, this year.

With the shops in town already stacking up on Halloween stuff, it was apparently impossible to nót take advantage of this coincidence, and the whole fair had a sort of very early Halloween-party kind of feel to it. This year the fench-poles around the field were decorated with (not yet quite fullgrown) pumpkins, big paper spiders and glow-in-the-dark skeletons. The entrance gate was manned, not only by Old man Jacobs, but also by two scarecrows, both with a big toothy grin carved into their pumpkin faces, ...which stood in stark contrast with the toothLESS grin of their living, breathing colleague.

Old man Jacobs took his old tophat (specially worn for the occasion) to us off, in a stiff but obvious well rehearsed bow, and Jamie (with his 12 years of age my senior by almost a whole year, but my best friend in the world) and I stepped onto the fair-ground...and into what would proof to be the most terrifying night of our young lives.

 

In those days the entrance to the fair itself was still free of charge and everybody could (and did) walk in and out as they pleased. (Poor Old man Jacobs would probably have to take his hat off a couple of 1000 times a day, although the town only housed about 300 inhabitants.) For the rides and stuff you did have to pay a small fee, if you chose to enter those, but just to watch (and there was plénty to watch) and wonder around the fair-ground, was still free. ...So Jamie and I spent the first few hours doing just that: Looking around.

Looking around, counting our money and planning which ride we wóuld like to do in the next two days, and which not. The only money actual spend that evening went to popcorn and of course this evening’s circus-show in the big tent. All togheter a full quarter of our budget. But it was worth it.

The whole evening, which stretched on till the stroke of midnight, was continually filled with the small bangs and bigger flashes of fireworks in the sky, starting from the moment the sky turned dark. The fireworks- and smal explosives-factory, which stood at the far end of town, always provided the town with enough free fireworks (probably as a sort of pay-off to keep the safety-inspector of the factory-grounds) to keep the nightsky alife with colors. ...Which the mayor (under close scrutiny by the fire-chief) was only to happy to set off,...all evening long. After the circus-show Jamie and I watched those fireworks with the enthousiasm only a young boy (or the mayor of an one-horse town) could ever have.

 

If Jamie had not felt the need to ‘water the trees’(as he called it at the time), we probably would have watched the fireworks till midnight, and gone home content with the things we had seen this evening, safing the remainder of our money for the next days to spent on the rides and cottoncandy and stuff, but...

 

Jamie got back from the shadows behind the far end of the circus-tent almost directly after he had left. “You'll never guess what I just discovered round back!”, he said enthusiastically.“A tree that walked away when you started peeing against it?!”, I responded (I had just read Lord of the rings, and liked the idea of ‘Ents’ a lot). Jamie ignored my remark and started pulling on my arm to get me to come with him. Slightly annoyed that I didn't get to watch the rest of the fireworks, but intrigued by Jamies promise of a ‘discovery’, I followed him willingly enough.  We walked into the shadows behind the big circus-tent and instantly came upon a direction-sign with an arrow painted on it, below which was written in a bold handwriting even readablle in the flashing but dim lights of the fireworks above us: FUNHOUSE THIS WAY.“Come on! It must be just beyond that line of trees! Let’s see if we can find it!!”, Jamie said. ...And thát was it. We wére gonna see!!

Beyond that first layer of twisted and gnarled trees, which covered this last part of the field before it ended by the fence in front of the woods, I saw a dark form shimmering in swaying red light.When we reached the dark shape, it proved to be some sort of old mansion! ...Or at least a very good immitation of one. Only sparsely lit by the light of small red lampions strung in the trees, and the still ongoing flashes of the fireworks, we wondered what the thing did here, right between all these nasty old trees tucked away behind the circus-tent. Why it stood here, out of sight of everybody, was quite a mystery to our youthfull imagination. It surely must be some sort of ride, but was it indeed open to the public? Surely we were all alone out here?

 

Jamie (always the bolder of us two) walked up the creaking wooden porchsteps. No sooner than that he set foot on the porch itself and the whole thing seemed to come alife. The darkened wood of the front of the house suddenly was awash with the multi-colored lights of a thousand cleverly hidden little lightbulbs. Jamies silhouette almost disappeared in the first outburst of those lights, but I could just make out the heavy flinch his body made. Obviously he was just as shocked as I was. Who could have known this was gonna happen?!  The next moment a low humming sound started, that slowly, with all the telltale signs of mechanical machinery, started turning into a creepy sort of music, that strongly reminded me of the happy circus-music we had heard in the circustent. But this time, somehow, all the ‘happy’ in the notes seemed to be drained from the music. Many years from that moment I would describe it to my psychiatrist as: "Like a clowns smile upside-down!", but at that moment it was simply “eeriely perfect” for the situation.  

Both Jamie and myself were now rapidly recovering from the first shock, and we were just as fast becoming even more intrigued by this strange, but obvious fun, ride.A glance of excitement passed between our eyes, and I hurried up the steps to join Jamie on the porch to take a better look at what now clearly was only a good mimicry of a spooky mansion.Although most of the front and porch was indeed made of, what seemed, aged wood, the bright lamps that now flashed on and off almost cheerfully, exposed both the door and windows for painted images, and a hidden framework of metal beneath the wooden panels which supported it all from within. What had seemed a solid wooden building at first sight was indeed only a facade. But an effective one, we had to admit. From only a few meters ahead even, the illusion had seemed perfect, especially lighted only by the wavering light of the red lampions in the trees and the sparks of the fireworks in the nights sky. The transformation from spooky old manson into a carnaval ride past it’s prime, was rather mind-boggling. 

 

“I trust I didn't scare you two boys tóó much?”, a bodyless voice rung over the porch, echoing the eerie background music into silence. Even the fireworks seemed to falter a bit when Jamie and I started franticaly looking around for the source of that voice.Uneasy with the fact that we couldn't see the man who had spoken these words, but to proud to let that fact show, jamie braced himself and boldly lied: “Neah! We don't scare thát easily!”.A moment of silence, and the voice answered, softer than the first time: “So my welcome was not as exciting for you, as I thought it was?!” The voice sounded rather dissappointed. “If that is the case, you boys are probably not very interested in the ride, this old funhouse has to offer, I guess? ...To bad, I had a real special show for you two planned! Oh well, in that case I...”

Afraid that he spoiled our chances to take the ride Jamie quickly said: “Oh, but we were quite excited with your welcome! Really!!” “Yeah, you nearly made me wet my pants when those lights sprung up!”, I excleamed in agreement. “...Out of pure excitment of course!”, I hurried to add. “...So not really out of fríght but...! ...But perhaps your ride..?!” “Perhaps your ride can actually scare us! ...At least a little?!”, jamie helped me to convince the voice. 

“Can't we...?”, I started after a few moments of uneasy silence but all of a sudden the voice started again. “Alright, I except the challenge. I will let you two boys come in and we will see if this old ride has a few little scares left in her still! I think I can promise you a réal fright! ...And jou don't even have to pay afterwards, if you two brave little boys are not réally scared by the time the ride is done! And even then, jou can pay whatever it was worth to jou. How does that sound?!” “Deal!”, Jamie proclaimed, and before I even had time to contemplate on what precisely we had agreed to, the wooden panel, on which the door was painted, started sliding inside and sidways, showing the entrance of the ride. “Come on, before he changes his mind!”, Jamie whisperd in my ear, and I let myself be pushed inside.

 

 

We stepped directly into, what seemed to be a empty narrow corridor of black painted wallpanels, only sparsely lit by the multicollored lamps that still flickered outside on the porch. “Are we supposed to walk straight ahead or...?” My question was as much directed to Jamie as to the voice, but it was only the door-panel closing up again, that provided the answer.  

Now blocked from the lights outside, the corridor completely disappeared into an oppressive and all surrounding  darkness. I felt Jamies presence still directly near me, but other than that I suddenly felt intirely disoriented. Because I had half turned around when the door-panel started sliding back in place, I now was not even sure wich way the corridor lay, but after a moment of indecisiveness I started feeling around for the walls. I felt Jamie do the same thing, but somehow we both didn't say a word. The silence was as stiffeling as the darkness. The walls were easily enough to find, and both Jamie and I started feeling our way through the corridor. The only sounds to guide us now, the slight echo of our shuffling feet and the beating of our hearts.

Perhaps it was the fact that I felt the glass before it happened, even if it was only for a fraction of a second before my feet triggered the rigged floor panel, but I wasn't really surprised when suddenly one of the wall panels lit up and exposed a full sized human skeleton behind glass. Lighted by a single red lightbulb, the human male anathomy skeleton (because thát was what it clearly was) seemed more funny in a ridiculous sort of way, than even remotely scary. Granted, it was a bít of a shock, any light after all those minutes of total darkness, but it was more an anticlimax than anything else really. One, rather sad, skeleton, of which you could even see the wires which held it upright, I had seen about a hundred times before, standing in a corner of our biology class. This one however was in a far worse condition than the one at school, because he had one of his ribs lying on the groud, along with most of his imitation ivory teeth.  The badly recorded ‘eerie giggle’, that sounded more like a rusty lawnmower trying to cut trough glass, didn't help to make it more believable. If this was the best scare this ride could provide, the whole experience was gonna be one héll of a bitter disappointment.   

 

It took a few moments for the colors to disappear before our eyes, when the sad skeleton-display gave way to total darkness once more, but, now that the mood was shattered, the spell that the silent darkness had place upon us before, seemed to have broken, and we started talking while we inched our way further down the corridor. “Oh boy, that was daft!”, I exclaimed, with more than a bit of disappointment (as well perhaps as a small flicker of relieve?) in my voice. “After all the trouble to get us in the mood, with all the darkness and stuf, I really had hoped for more!”“Yeah!”, Jamie agreed wholeheartedly. “If this is ít, we should not only nót have to pay the entrance-fee, we oughta get payed ourselves! ...For letting us mis the fireworks and everything!” “Éyh!!? Is this the best you can do?!”, he jelled defiantly into the darkness. “We think this is a big waste of our time!” The voice didn't answer though, so we could only walk on, in search for the next glass wallpannel.

That next glass panel came soon enough, just after the first corner in the corridor we encountered, and once again the figure on display was more funny than frightening. This time it was a ratteling mechanical dummy. What Jamie called an ‘animatronic’. It was a witch by the looks of the faded halloween costume, with matching floppy hat, it wore. A characteristic broomstick was held by long thin fingers with black painted vingernails.

The dummy's mouth was opening and closing as if she was silently gasping for air. The funny effect of this ‘gasping' was strengthened by the fact that, while her lower jaw remained set in place, stuck to the nek, the upper part of the head moved, jerkely flopping the big hat back and fourth. The canned cackeling laughter we were probably supposed to hear now, was only a soft background noice of static hissing. “What is wrong with you, you sad old crone? Cat got your tongue or something?!”,Jamie teased that ragity figure in the dim light of a sigle yellow lightbulb on the other side of the dusty glass. “Yeah probably, and then the poor beast choked to death on it”, I answered laughing, pointing down to the plastic black cat which lay, with it's metalic claws in the air, helplessly by the witch her feet.

The cat's right glass eye was cracked in two, and now glistening softly in the dim light, almost as if the cat was silently crying because of it's misserable state. Jamie, who by this time was also laughing out loud, went down on one knee and started, between fits of laughter, calling: "Here, kitty, kitty. Come here, little kitty. Let us see if you have some life in you left!?

 

The next moment the yellow light disappeared and total darkness settled back around us once again. While I was still blinking to reajust my eyes back to the darkness, I realised that Jamie's laughter had stopped abruptly, right along with the light. Still giggeling myself I asked: “What's wrong? Wouldn't that cat come to you?” “...But it did!!..I mean..it looked as if...?”, Jamie stammered. “It looked as if...?’

“What?!”, I asked, suddenly not so giddy anymore either. “I could swear...”, Jamie sounded now almost pleading, “I saw that cat move, just before the light whent out!” “You saw...? You mean, jou saw that PLASTIC cat move, when you called out to it?”, I said with somehow more dismissive scepticism than I really felt. Jamie was normally NOT the type to get easily freaked over something that could just as easy be his own imagination.“Well, if that is what it takes to bring some life into this dead place, I think we oughtta call the witch and that skeleton too!” “Here witchy witchy!”, I started. “Here mister skeleton!, come here and tell Jamie a plastic cat can't move all by itself!”

Suddenly aware of the fact that, while I was really only joking to ease my own feeling of unease, I was busy making a right fool out of Jamie. “It was probably just a mouse or something that moved and your eyes playing a trick on you when the light went out!”, I offered reassuringly. “Yeah...That MUST must be it, I suppose.”. But Jamie didn't sounded all that convinced. As if he had to make himself believe it really, he said: “Yeah! Just a startled mouse or some other critter, made it move when I started calling and tapping the class! I bet that when we look, that stupid cat is still just lying there, dusting away. ...Perhaps we can even see the little footprints of that damned mouse!.”I heard him trying to re-trip the floorpanel to lighten up the display again, but apparently the thing had to reset itself first, so it remaind dark.

 

“Perhaps...?”, I started rumaging through my pants-pockets. “Áh, here we go!” The match I lit up was a brighter point of light than the single lightbulbs of the displays had been and once again I started blinking my eyes.Pretend angry, Jamie said: “So you had matches with you all along, and you let us stumble along in the darkness, like a couple of blind bats?!” Jamie sounded almost like his old goodnatured self again.

“Well, first of all; I don't had matchES, I had A match!”, I proclaimed pretend offended, while I tried to lighten the display beyond the reflecting surface of the glasspanel. “And secondly; ...Bat's don't stúmble through darkness, they FLY!” “Yeah yeah, sure!”, Jamie responded, “Can you see anything beyond that dusty glass?!” I only saw what was directly in front of the glass, and although the cat had been very close to the glass, I couldn't see it. “No. ...Sorry! ...I guess both the cat and witch have left, looking for a place where there aren't rodents to compete with in scaring people!”, I joked. Just before the match burnt out, I saw Jamie sticking his tong out to me in responce to my teasing. “I would be more carefull if I were you, with sticking out that tongue off yours! That was how that witch lost hers; she was insulting her cat!” “Hah hah! Verry funny! By the way, who carries around ONE signle match in his pockets?”, Jamie grumply murmeld, while we continued our way along the wallpannels.

“Well, for your information; I stole that match with difficulty from my fathers personal matchbook! ...And then forgot where I needed it for!, I mused.” “...So I hid it in my pocket and just nów remembered I had it with me!” “Ha ha! You stole it, only to forget were you wanted it for?!”, Jamie laughed.“Jeah well, it proofed usefull didn't it!?” “No it didn’t!”, Jamie pointed out.

By now we had rounded another sharp corner, this time twisting us back to the right, and we started wondering how long this ‘corridor of darkness’ was. Altough, in reality we probably weren't more than about 10 minutes inside, by this time we had given up any hope of that ‘real fright’ the voice had promised us, and were now only determined to get this over with, as soon as possible.  “I think we're about to come up to the next display-window.”, I whispered. “I can hardly wait to see what it's gonna be this time.”, Jamie said, with enough sarcasm in his voice to make me giggle in anticipation of the next disappointing display. “I bet it's a ghost! ...White sheet with two holes for eyes cut into it!”, I snickert. “It wouldn't surprise me a bit.”, Jamie agreed.

We tripped the next rigged floorpannel, and the window-display lit up. ...But it wasn't a sheet-ghost. “What the...?”, Jamie whispered under his breath. Behind this window there stood a witch and a skeleton. The SAME witch and the SAME skeleton, as we had seen before, this time standing side by side.“Is this for real?! Those two weren't scary the first time we saw them, but...?!”“It can't be...!?”, I mirrored his confusion. “Can it?!”

 

 

I heard Jamie next to me try to convince me (and himself) that this was a cheap attempt to exploit the ‘great success’ of the previous two displays, but I could hear that his sarcasm this time was nothing but an act. He obviously also recognised both the two dummies as the same ones we saw before.

The skeleton had the identical tooth-deprived grin and the same rib missing, and the witch had that same mute laugh, along with the exact same faded clothes. Even the black cat by her feet (this time standing upright) had the same ‘cracked glass glitter’ in it's right eye.  The dim light, this time an orange blend, came from a single yellow ligtbulb on the witch her side and a red one on the skeleton's side. “They’re trying to freak us out with the idea that those dummies from the first displays moved, but these are just good replica's!”, Jamie said. “Sure, that múst be it!”, I agreed. “Excact replica’s of those stupid cheap dummies are now trying to scare us. Ha, to bad for them that we don't believe...”

I suddenly realised that Jamie was pointing and looking down in pure disbelieve. “The cat...look at that cat!”, he wispered. I did, and felt my blood turn to ice in my fains.  That plastig black cat was moving. ...And this time it sure as hell wasn't an illusion, it was coming right towards the glass that separated us, and started pacing along it, trying to find a way to get to óur side.

Plastic claws with sharp little steel nails on it, started to paw the glass barrier. I could clearly see the hinges move, in it's plastic joints. We stood frozen on our side of the glass looking at a scene our brains just couldn't believe we were seeing. “Oh my god, look at the skeleton”, Jamie jelled, grabbing my shoulders and pointing feverisly in an attempt to make me look up faster. Vaguely aware, somewhere in the back of my head, that the wires that onces held it upride were now dangling useless of the skeleton's skull and shoulderbones, I saw it putting one bony feet before the other and making his way towards the glass too. The metallic sounding giggle that accompanied the skeleton, seemed to grow stronger and more realistic. The witch was still silent in her headflopping laughter, but was now also starting to move slowly towards us, her intire body heavily shaking.I realised, with an almost attached feeling, that Jamie and I were still helplessly frozen against the wall opposite to the window display.

By the time the skeleton had reached the glass and started to join the cat in trying to break it's way trough the glass, jamie had refound his composure apparently enough to start pulling me away from in front of the display. Afraid to turn my back on the scene, I let myself be dragged backwards, further up the corridor. To my big horror the light went out again, and we were left to find our way blindly trough the corridor once again, this time with the terrifying sounds of scratching cat's nails, dead bony fingers and long black fingernails, on the glass behind us. The metallic sounding giggle of the skeleton seemed to have stopped along with the light, but the screetching sounds proved that their movements had not. A small blue light suddenly lit up and displayed a wall blocking our way. A dark metalic wallpanel simply ended the corridor. A small faded sign read: Go Back!. A dead end!!By the light of the single blue lightbulb Jamie and I looked, and even felt, around, but there was only one way to turn. “Back!!”

 

“We can't go back!”, I jelled, when I realised that thát was what jamie had in mind, but he already was dragging me back. “If we hurry, we can get past the glass befóre they break trough, and run back till we get to were we entered the corridor.”With the scratching sounds growing louder and louder, Jamie and I neared the display in a mad dash trough the darkness. Soon we would probably hear the ominous sound of breaking glass.

We passed the display, in deep fear. Although I registrated the noices growing softer again, indicating we had indeed pássed the display, the display-lights never went up again. Luckily we didn’t hear any glass break either.The sharp corner came next and was taken with the same speed. Only when we reached the display where the witch originally had stood, Jamie held in. As if he still didn't quite believe what had happened, he started to feel for the glass panel. “I wanna know if they broke through, or had another way out.”, he explained.

But the glass wás broken. The glass shards crunching beneath our feet even before we reached the display itself. Our dash was reinstituted with renewed energy. If they could have broken out of their first glass display , they could break out of the second one as well. The next corner and soon after that the next display (the one which had held the skeleton), came up and were passed swiftly. Our panting breaths and wild beating hearts rushing in our ears. The corridor’s ending (or rather it's beginning) was still blocked with the wallpannel, with on the other side the frontdoor painted on it. Once again, we found our way blocked. Frantically we started yelling for an exit. We were sure we would sudenly feel a plastic cat with metalic nails, claw at our enkles. Or feel a bony hand on our shoulders.When no responce came Jamie started getting eeriely quiet. “I wonder...? ...We know how they got out of their fírst displays, they obviously bróke out...but how did they get ín that second display? ...If they didn't broke ín?!”, Jamie wispered.

 

“I let them in!” The voice made us jump up. “They were só determant, to prove their worth to you, that they broke out! But I convinced them to first try it, óne more time, in a display. So I let them in that last one.” “...But now that it has failed again, I fear that I'm gonna have to let them prove themselves in another way.”

The meaningfull silence the voice let fall, made us tremble in our boots. “Of course in this dark, thát is almost to easy. Anyone could just sneak up to you and scare you half to death. ...So I'm gonna turn on the lights for you! That way they can’t just creep up on jou! At the same time the lights went up all trough the corridor.

We could now see te intire length of the corridor, right up to the first corner. The lenght was not half of what I expected. Obviously everything seems longer when you’re trying desperately to find your way trough the dark. Halfway up, now glittering in the bright light of many fluorescent lamps, we saw glass shards on the flour, indicating the location of the first display. Somehow the corridor, with it's blackened steel walls was even more frightening now. An unearhly non-light seemed to radiate from the wall-pannels themselves. ...But what terrified us the most, were the moving figures that appear at the end. Slowly, but surely, coming closer. 

The small black cat was leading the way, closely followed by the riggety shape of the skeleton, the few remaining teeth in the deadman's grin catching the bleak light. It had stretched it's bony arms to their full extend, and was now scratching both walls with the tips of his middel fingers, whilst effectively closing the net in on us. The witch was strongly leaning on her broomstick, using it fore support, her big hat was still flopping slowly up and down, along with the upper part of her head. Their upmarch was only accompanied by the rattling of their joints and the cracking of glass under their shuffeling feet when they passed the broken display.  By this time I was feeling around for a hinge or something to open the doorpanel, constantly looking over my shoulder to the nearing trio of horrifying creatures. Jamie was now yelling from the top of his longs for help, but no further responce of the voice came. The cat reached us first but seemed to wait, with his artificial fur raised, till the skeleton and witch had caught up.

Jamie and I were litterally standing with our backs to the wall.The three creatures were blocking any possibility of fleeing back into the corridor. They were now only a few feet from us. Close enough to touch us. The cat's metallic claws were agressively slashing towards Jamies legs, and the witch’ her long black vingernails were stroking my face. We both were now tó afraid to even scream. The only sounds hearable where the small scratching noices of the skeletons's still scraping vingertips. Our eyes snapped close. We held our breaths and waited for the inevitable end.

 

“Scared yet?!” The voice boomed in our ears, shattering the silence. “Truly scared?!” “Yés! Yes, yes we áre scared!!”, we called out, still with our eyes closed in fear. The next moment we felt the wallpanel behind us sliding open.

A second later, both Jamie and myself were hurrying to get trough the growing opening. We practically tumbled out of the door, and jumped up outside on the wooden porch, ready for a spurt right out of these cursed woods.  The voice made us stop in our tracks.

“Pay up!!” “The deal was; you would only pay if you were trúly scared...and you wére, so pay up!!”, it boomed, while the lights outside seemed to flare up with the intensity of a thousand suns. “Pay up, ...or I sent our friends out to get you!" Practically blind from the overdosis of light around us, we emptied the contents of our pockets onto the porch. We could hear the witch and skeleton moving in the opening and we sure as hell didn't want them anywhere near us again. The voice was now almost a snearing laugh: “Excellent, you really dó like our little show!!”

The lights went out, and we started for the stairs down, almost tripping over the plastic cat that was now apparently trying to rub it's plastic head against our legs. Blindly we stumbled away from it. Only the eerie music, that had started up again, was a marker for directions when we made our way back trough the twisted trees. Even the fireworks in the sky, undoubtably nearing their big final, weren't visible to our, still with ghostlights polkadotted, sight. 

Only when we started tripping over tentpoles and wires, we realised we probably where out of danger, but both Jamie and me hurried away. With the bright sparks of the fireworks in the sky, competing with the colors still lingering in front of our eyes, we navigated the fairgrounds. Everybody was tó preoccupied, with the big climax of the fireworks, to give two scared little boys, stumbling around, any notice. Even Old man Jacobs was nowhere to be seen when we went trough the gates. The scarecrows by the gate, the only witnesses to our hastened departure.

 

We made a pact that very night, before returning to our homes; When no one else would come forward with tales of horror on the fairground, wé woudn’t say anything either. Without any grown-ups to callaborate our story, no one would believe us, would they?

...Do you?!?

 

THE END