Sean E. Britten

I’ve always been inspired by music (I know, super original!) and music has always been a part of my writing. Way back in the days of burnt CDs, my mates and I used to put together CD mixtapes and I came up with the idea of a series of short stories based around pieces of music. Mixtape is all short stories sharing their titles with different songs and inspired, to various degrees, by their lyrics, artists, and vibe.

Currently Playing: Andrew Gold – Spooky, Scary Skeletons

Ten minutes before the fair closes, Jazmine and her boyfriend use their last tickets on a ride through the haunted house. At first, it looks just like any other cheap carnival attraction, full of plywood sets and plastic skeletons, but then the rooms keep going, and going, and going, with no end in sight…

Trigger Warning: Gore

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Stupid, it was so stupid to actually feel afraid of some cheesy carnival ride. Jazmine couldn’t help it. She looked up at the haunted house and a cold finger ran down her spine. Shambolic, two levels of boarded up windows and broken turrets, a cross between an abandoned mansion and a castle. A giant grim reaper leaned over the roof, a hooded skull the size of a car, claiming the structure with bony hands. Spiderwebs and threatening signs covered the facade along with neon skeletons, bones of pink and yellow and blue.

“You coming?” Beau, her boyfriend, took Jaz by the hand.

“I kind of want to go home,” Jazmine said. “It’s late, everything’s closing for the night.”

It wasn’t a lie, the crowds had thinned out to a fifth their original size and half the games and rides were already closed. Announcements over the speaker system said the fair would be shutting down in another ten minutes. A few people squeezed in a last go-around on the rickety roller coaster or the ferris wheel.

“Last ride, okay? And then we’ll go home,” Beau said. “What, are you scared?”

“No,” Jaz lied. “But it looks stupid, seriously, a haunted house? Are we twelve?”

“Come on, we’ll get rid of these last couple of tickets.” Beau held up two red strips with ‘ADMIT ONE’ printed on them.

“Fine, fine.”

They caught up with Matty and his new girlfriend, Kaylee, in front of the haunted house. Matty was Beau’s best friend and Jaz knew him pretty well but she’d only just met Kaylee earlier that night. She seemed fine, a little loud, a little obsessed with getting the perfect picture every time they did anything, and a bit of a pick-me. Already she had her phone out and recording.

“We good?” Matty asked.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Beau said.

“Look at this guy,” Kaylee snickered. “Perfect job for him, right?”

The carnie taking tickets at the entrance to the haunted house looked like one of the plastic skeletons had been pulled off the wall then wrapped in flayed skin and denim coveralls. Cadaverous, pale and sickly, with a badly shaved head that brought attention to the shape of his skull. As they approached, he gave them a broken grin. Signs surrounded the entryway, reading ‘RUN!’, ‘Beware the BONEYARD!’ and ‘SPOOKY, SCARY SKELETONS!’

“Y’all my last customers of the night,” the carnie said. “Tickets, please.”

Beau handed the carnie their tickets. He pulled a lever with a loud clunk and a door slammed open. A four-person car rolled onto the track near the carnie and slammed again to a stop. It looked like an oversized dodgem car that had been beaten to hell and rescued from a scrapheap. Dents were kicked in its sides and its windshield was broken, and stains splattered the car from front to back. A little license plate on the front read ‘666’.

“Is that blood?” Jaz said.

“I mean, it’s paint that’s meant to look like blood, obviously,” Beau laughed.

The four of them climbed into the busted car. Jaz and Beau sat in the front with Matty and Kaylee in the backseat. It was tight enough that Jaz felt her knees wedged against the metal.

“Y’all sure you want to go inside?” The carnie grinned his broken grin, eyes shaded in their sockets. “Last ride of the night, things can go wrong. Sometimes, the terrors became a little too real!”

Beau laughed. “I think we’ll be okay, buddy.”

“Ah, no scaring you, I can see you’re all bad to the bone! Well, in front of you is a brake that will stop the car in case of an emergency.” He pointed to a red lever inset in the dash.

“What kind of emergency?” Jaz asked.

“Any kind. Please make sure you keep your arm bones and legs bones inside the car at all times, if y’all want to keep them attached to your shoulder bones and hip bones that is! Don’t leave the car for any reason, and enjoy the ride, it is your last after all!”

The carnie pulled his lever back in the other direction and the car thumped forward, hammering into another set of swinging doors. Kaylee was already recording. Jaz felt her heart seize. A chill settled over her skin in spite of the humid warmth of the night. Beau laughed and rubbed her thigh. Leering, the skeletal carnie watched them disappear inside.

The doors clapped shut and dropped the four of them into darkness. Matty let out a mock scream that made Jaz jump. Kaylee laughed and let out a small scream of her own. The glow from her phone was the only light.

A cackle split the air. They moved through a wall of black streamers into what looked like a witch’s laboratory. Potions and jars lined the fake stone walls. A vivid green glow beamed from a smoking cauldron. With a shriek, a gaping skull sprung up inside the cauldron and made Jaz jump again.

“Are you okay?” Beau laughed. “It’s just a ride.”

“I’m fine, I just want to go home,” Jaz said.

The car rolled on. Just before they moved into the next room, a figure in a black dress dropped from the ceiling. A skeleton, this one painted green and dangling on long strings like a puppet. Another loud cackle came across the hidden speakers.

The next section seemed to be modelled on a serial killer’s lair. Plastic skulls and bones littered the floor next to old bloodstains. Something dripped from the ceiling and Jaz flinched. Kaylee and Matty laughed. Touching it with her fingertips, she found the dripping liquid was red but too red to pass for real blood. Water with food colouring in it maybe. Against one of the walls, half-buried in shadows, another skeleton dressed in rags thrashed against a set of manacles while prerecorded screams played over the speakers. A second set of manacles dangled empty, waiting, beside them. The skeleton looked frighteningly real, blood and bits of flesh clinging to the bones. Jaz noticed that some bones across the floor were visibly plastic but some looked almost real as well, and she wondered if it would be legal to use real remains in a ride like this.

An automaton sprung from the wall, another costumed, and obviously plastic, skeleton. It was dressed in a black apron and a hockey mask, and a running chainsaw swung from the ends of its bony arms. Jaz screamed and ducked. The chainsaw howled, ear splittingly loud. For a second, she would swear she could see an actual chainsaw blade, with jagged, metal teeth, spinning only inches from her face. Then, with a bang, the car ran into another set of doors.

“Oh, my God, Jaz, you are too funny!” Kaylee said.

The oversized bumper car whipped around a tight corner, hard enough to wrench Jaz’s neck. The next section was long and narrow and dark. They must have been moving along the rear of the haunted house, Jaz thought. She just wanted this stupid ride to be over.

Reams of fake spiderwebs obscured the lights. Off in one direction, Jaz could see the green glow of an emergency exit sign hazed by the cottony web. She had to fight the urge to pull the emergency lever and stop the ride so she could jump out and leave.

Plastic spiders, dozens of them, hundreds, filled the webs. A few moved up and down on what must have been hidden pulleys. Something tickled the back of Jaz’s neck. She swatted at it, finding nothing, but then felt tiny legs on her arm, on her thighs, and on her neck again. Without intending to, she let out a low moan. Fortunately, none of the others seemed to notice.

“Is this the best they’ve got?” Matty scoffed in the back of the car.

“So fake,” Kaylee said.

Something moved in the web overhead. Jaz couldn’t see it but she felt like it was about the size of a big dog. Looking up, she saw the shadows of several long, spidery limbs passing under one of the lights. The breeze from its passage made the web bounce.

“What was that?” Jaz said.

“It’s coming for you, babe,” Beau laughed.

The tunnel seemed to go on and on for way too long to span just the back of the haunted house. Something scuttled across one of the walls. Jaz spotted a bony limb manipulating cords of web.

Through the gloom, another set of doors rose ahead of the car. Jaz was surprised at her relief. Before they reached them, something screamed out of the dark. She shrieked and bolted back against Beau. A giant spider, but not quite. It looked like a human skull and ribcage mounted on eight spindly, bony legs, all painted black. Its gaping mouth was full of oversized fangs. She only glimpsed it for a second and then they slammed into the next area.

The other three laughed. Jaz felt her heart racing. The skeletal spider was only some stupid Halloween decoration, she told herself. But it had moved like a living animal.

“It looked real!” Jaz said.

“I totally got that!” Kaylee said, looking at her phone. “I can’t wait to post it! There’s no reception in here.”

Jaz twisted in her uncomfortable seat. “Fuck this.”

“It’s almost over,” Beau said.

The car hit some kind of ramp. Its track pulled it upright and they fell back against their seats. They must have been ascending to the second level of the haunted house. The ride was only halfway over, Jaz thought, but it couldn’t go on for much longer.

Turning through another set of doors, they moved into a dark room full of multicoloured skeletons writhing under a blacklight. Another room where snarling beasts seemed to be locked inside rattling cages, bones littering the floor. From what Jaz could see of the animals, they were all skeletons as well. A third room full of dangling electrical wires with sparks and a burnt smell thick in the air, a smoking skeleton laying beside the track. Exiting and entering each area, they slammed through heavy doors that jarred them in their seats.

“Why the fuck are there so many skeletons? It’s like nothing but skeletons,” Jaz said.

Finally, they hit a sudden drop. They rattled down a one-story ramp as plastic blades swung over their heads. Jaz didn’t feel afraid anymore, just annoyed, and was relieved that the ride must have been coming to an end with the drop as its climax.

Except when the car hammered through the doors at the end of the ramp, they found themselves travelling through yet another room. A grey dungeon littered with bones and medieval torture devices. Animatronic skeletons writhed against the walls as disturbingly realistic screams played over the speakers. Jaz jerked upright but the others didn’t really react.

“What is this?” Jaz said. “How are we still going?”

“I’m sure it’s over soon,” Beau said. “Chill out.”

Another set of doors banged open and they still weren’t outside. The car traveled through another tunnel, this one filled with revolving mirrors. They sparkled and repeated over and over like the inside of a disco ball and even Jaz would have had to admit they looked impressive in other circumstances. The only horror aspect were glimpses of skulls and skeletons that appeared in the background of some of the mirrors.

“Okay, that’s got to be it,” Beau said.

But when they crashed through the next set of doors, they found themselves in another long, narrow tunnel. It looked like a hospital hallway with blood on the walls and screams echoing from some of the rooms. The track ran down the middle of the corridor.

“There’s no way this can all fit inside the ride we saw!” Jaz said, starting to feel panicked.

“What, babe?” Beau said.

“I mean, haven’t you been paying attention to where we’re going? We went around and up and down, and there’s no way this all fits inside the building the ride was in!”

“I mean, obviously it does,” Matty said.

Kaylee laughed but even she sounded a little nervous. An animatronic skeleton in doctor scrubs, holding a bonesaw, lunged from one of the doorways. They crashed into another room and onto another ramp surrounded by neon skeletons. The car climbed then immediately slid down the other side into a room of total blackness. Jaz hoped she was wrong, and the doors would open and they’d find themselves outside with the creepy carnie leering at them and they would climb out and she’d laugh at herself and she’d gaslight herself into thinking she was wrong the whole time and it would be fine and it would be over it would all be over.

They bashed through another set of doors and into a room that looked like an Egyptian tomb. A skeleton wrapped in bandages staggered out of a plywood sarcophagus.

“This can’t be happening!” Jaz screamed, louder than she’d intended.

“Whoa, calm down! It’s okay, it’s okay,” Beau said.

“Yeah, chill!” Matty said.

Another room where a bunch of skeletons in pirate costumes gathered around a chest full of fake gold. One of them swung a sword over Jaz’s head but she hardly noticed, tucked into a ball and breathing hard. She pulled the phone out of her bag and checked it. No reception, like Kaylee had said. They’d been on the ride for around ten minutes. The fair should be closing. No way could a normal fairground ride go on for this long. No way could all of these rooms fit inside the building they’d entered. Beside her, Beau also started to look uneasy.

“You know what? It must be some kind of virtual reality thing,” Beau said. “Or, I don’t know. We’re not really moving, we just feel like we’re moving and everything is changing around us.”

“We’re definitely moving, Beau!” Jaz said.

“It’s a prank, it’s some kind of prank!” Matty said, sounding more confident than Beau. “It’ll be over soon, they’re seeing how long we last.”

The car slammed through another set of doors, and whipped around another sharp turn. The sense of motion was unmistakable. Everything looked cheap and nasty and fake, like any other low rent haunted house, but solid and real and definitely not VR. They passed through a vampire lair with a skeleton dressed like Dracula that popped out of its coffin like a jack-in-the-box. Through a gloomy jungle with skulls mounted on stakes and a cannibal pot surrounded by bones. Through a hellscape filled with flicking orange cellophane and a horned skeleton, painted red, with a cape and pitchfork. A sewer filled with skeletal rats running around on little tracks. Through room after room, some of them visibly too big or too long to be contained within the building that they’d seen from the outside.

Tears streamed down Jaz’s face, although she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. A kind of confused terror. Every few rooms, something would leap out or swing toward the car, looking too real and genuinely dangerous, but as long as they stayed inside the car no harm came to them. The ride went on and on and on. Her knees ached, her back and neck hurt. Maybe that was the point, nothing else would touch them but the ride wouldn’t end until they starved and rotted into skeletons themselves. She scanned for an emergency exit but the only one she could remember seeing was back in the tunnel with the webs and the spiders.

They entered another large, dark room, the track surrounded by gravestones and open graves with skeletons emerging from below the ‘ground’. Rolling hills covered in graves and tombs were painted on the walls against a backdrop of night. A moon shaped like a skull watched from one corner. The skeletons came in various neon colours but it was a soft green glow in the corner of the room that caught Jaz’s attention.

“An emergency exit! Over there!” Jaz pointed.

“Alright, fuck this,” Beau said.

Beau grabbed the almost forgotten red lever set in the dash of the car. When he gave it a yank, it made a rusty, grinding sound. The car juddered to a halt, giving their necks a last twist.

The four of them sat in the middle of the room, creepy music and distant screams filtering through the hidden sound system. Bright pink and yellow and green skeletons jerked and swivelled inside open graves. Beau started to stand up but Jaz stopped him.

“He told us not to get out of the car,” Jaz said.

“What? Who?” Beau said.

“The carnival guy at the beginning of the ride, he said not to get out of the car for any reason.”

Beau let out a bark of strained laughter. “Are you kidding me? You’re the one who wanted to get out of here first!”

“We’ll get out of here, and find out what the fuck is going on,” Matty said. “If it’s a prank, they’re probably waiting for us out there.”

Matty stood up, unsteady on his feet, and stepped out of the car. Nothing happened, just the skeletons continuing to jerk around on hidden mechanisms. Nervously, Kaylee followed him. Beau stepped out and finally Jaz did the same.

The exit sign wasn’t far away, only eight or nine paces from the car. The door itself was hard to see, hidden against the room’s painted backdrop, but it was most definitely there. They weaved around some of the fake gravestones but something strange started to happen. Jaz felt like her eyes weren’t working right. With every step she took, the door remained the same distance away. The painted backdrop retreated. Graves and headstones that she’d thought had only been painted on the wall were suddenly real, or real props at least, as if they always had been and it was just that her eyes were playing tricks on her. She couldn’t pinpoint a moment when the transition blurred, it just felt like her sense of perspective had been mistaken. But it kept happening, again and again and again, as they found themselves moving uphill, fake grass underfoot, away from the track and their car.

“Guys, what the hell is happening?” Jaz said, when they’d been walking for almost a minute and hadn’t gotten any closer to the door.

Beau looked back at her, an expression of genuine and almost boyish fright occupying his face. The room was still a room, they were enclosed, indoors, in a space with painted walls and a black ceiling. But what had started as an area no bigger than a large living room was now a space the size of a movie theatre. The track ran through the middle of it, surrounded by a sprawling fake graveyard, far larger than anything any sane person would ever create for any reason. Dozens of neon skeletons moved and spun in their open graves.

“This isn’t happening,” Kaylee said, her tone completely matter-of-fact, as if reality could simply be denied without fear or consequences.

Beau reached for the sides of his head. He groped across his skull and made scooping motions in front of his eyeballs. It took Jaz a few moments to realise he was trying to find some kind of VR headset.

“It’s not virtual reality!” Jaz yelled. “It’s not a prank, it’s not-, anything, this is real!”

Looking around for something to help them, Jaz noticed something new. The skeletons weren’t just twisting and rattling in prearranged patterns. Some of them, most of them, appeared to be hauling themselves upright and moving out of their graves. Their hollow eye sockets turned in the direction of the group.

“What are the skeletons doing?” Jaz said.

Like puppets with invisible strings, the skeletons, green and blue and purple and yellow, stumbled toward the four of them. There was no explanation for how they could suddenly move the way they did. Kaylee made a strangled noise. Beau just stared. Matty scoffed as if still convinced this was all some kind of game, or as if he was trying to convince himself.

“They’re just skeletons, and they’re fake!” Matty said. “This is so stupid!”

“Matty, don’t,” Kaylee said softly.

“Let’s just fucking finish this.”

Matty stalked back toward the car, trying to shoulder past the moving skeletons. Like somehow he didn’t see how insanely impossible everything around them was. His brain must have been shutting down to protect him, insisting that this was all a prank or part of the ride, and if they got back in the car and kept going it would all be over soon. One of the skeletons lurched toward him and he shoved it back, not too hard, like they were a carnival entertainer who’d invaded his personal space. His fingers slipped inside its ribcage. The skeleton staggered and rattled but didn’t fall over. It and several others snatched Matty with their bony claws.

“Hey, man! Stop, come back here, okay?” Beau broke out of his paralysis.

“What? What’s happening? What’s going on?” Matty said as skeletons grabbed him.

With no muscles, no skin or flesh either, the spindly skeletons didn’t look strong enough to hold Matty the way they did. Somehow, however, he couldn’t wrench free. Jaz and the others watched. Matty looked rooted in place. Suddenly, his eyes bulged. His flesh rippled. His jaw hinged open and he started screaming. High, shrill, an animal in a trap, screeching.

“Matty!” Kaylee squealed.

Screams tore the lining of Matty’s throat and he coughed up a spray of blood. The skeletons held on but only lightly as his skin writhed. Something inside Matty rebelled. Jaz watched as blood appeared on his arms, like some invisible creature was raking him with its claws. More blood soaked through his t-shirt.

“His skin, it’s ripping open!” Jaz said.

Bones began to tear free from Matty’s arms. Finger bones and wrist bones and radius and ulna and humerus, leaving behind the skin like sleeves. Flesh clung in clumps to the bones, dripping blood. Bony fingers raked at his clothes and then his face. He was still screaming, Jaz realised in horror. Matty was still alive and screaming as his own skeleton came alive and freed itself from his flesh.

Sheets of skin and meat dropped away from under Matty’s clothing as his skeleton’s bony fingers tore them to shreds. Dripping and red, the skeleton stepped out of the loose sack of flesh and organs that remained of the rest of Matty. Jaz was stunned. Kaylee screamed, over and over, shrieking until her lungs ran out, gasping, and then started over. Beau looked like he’d frozen up again.

“We have to get out of here!” Jaz said. “We have to go, now!”

Jaz spun and grabbed Beau by the hand. The emergency exit door still looked like it was only eight or nine paces away, built into the painted wall, but a row of skeletons formed between them and it.

“Back to the car!” Jaz said.

On the way, Jaz grabbed Kaylee as well. The three of them ran down the shallow hill covered in fake grass, veering around open graves. They looped around the pack of skeletons surrounding Matty’s animated bones and made it back to the car. More skeletons stalked down the hill from the other side of the track.

Beau leaned over the car. “How do we make it go again?”

Jaz grabbed the emergency lever inset in the dash and shoved it back into position. The car didn’t move.

“They’re coming!” Kaylee said.

A dozen skeletons, a mix of plastic ones and ones that looked suspiciously real, arranged themselves in front of the car. Jaz wasn’t sure if the car could break through them even if it started moving again. Matty’s bloody skeleton and those that had freed it lurched down the hill toward them. Soon, they would be surrounded.

“Run, run!” Jaz grabbed Beau and took off again.

Jaz and Beau headed down the track the way they’d originally come. It was much longer now of course, given the way the room had grown. Kaylee followed, arms flailing at any of the skeletons that got close to her. The room didn’t pull the same trick as it had with the emergency exit fortunately. Everything stayed the same size. When they reached the doors between rooms, Jaz thought they would probably stay locked but to her surprise and relief they swung open easily. Skeletons clattered after them as they slipped through then the doors swung shut again.

They found themselves back in a medieval dungeon. Jaz couldn’t remember if it was the room they’d passed through before the graveyard but she didn’t think so. It looked bigger, more real, with rough stone walls. The track still ran through the middle of the room. Music and screams played through hidden speakers.

“What the fuck is happening?” Beau said. “How do we get out?”

“Keep going! Look for another emergency exit!” Jaz said.

An iron maiden swung open, revealing bristling spikes inside its lid. Another plastic skeleton lurched out, hands raised toward them. Skeletons hung from chains on the walls. Without any apparent trouble, they slid their bony hands free from their manacles and started toward the humans as well. Parts of skeletons scattered across the floor even began to crawl toward them, jaws chattering, bony fingers dragging disembodied arms.

“Don’t let them touch you!” Jaz said. “They must need to touch you to do what they did to Matty!”

They shouldered through another set of doors. Skeletons dressed like cannibals lurched at them through a jungle of fake plants. They ran through room after room, finding skeletons in every single one of them. A vampire skeleton that leapt after them from its coffin while skeletal bats swung around on bits of fishing line and tried to bite them. Back through the sewer, chased by plastic, bony rats. Skeleton doctors and nurses in bloodstained scrubs. A skeletal devil. Skeleton dogs. Jaz scanned the walls and corners for exit signs or a door that wasn’t part of the track.

The rooms no longer had the same order as they’d had before. They changed size and shape and some were totally new to the three of them. All the rooms contained at least one skeleton. Jaz and the others couldn’t fight the skeletons when they were too afraid to touch them so they had to keep running.

They emerged into a chamber with a cauldron to one side and potions lining the walls. Jaz hesitated for a moment and Beau bumped into her from behind.

“This is the first room we came in!” Jaz said. “Maybe this is how we get out!”

Jaz shuffled forward carefully, one eye on the cauldron. She was more worried about being disappointed by what was behind the next set of doors than anything else. Nothing emerged from the cauldron but something itched at the back of her mind.

Suddenly, with a prerecorded cackle, a skeleton dropped from the ceiling like a puppet on strings. Bones painted green, it wore a black dress and a pointed hat like a witch. Kaylee was at the back of the trio and it fell onto her shoulders. She screamed and tried to get free but bony arms locked around her head and neck.

“No!” Jaz spun but stopped short of helping her.

Kaylee’s screams took on a new note of pain as her eyes widened in horror. Bloody tears began to run from their corners. Splits appeared on her skin. With a horrible, wet sound, her face peeled off as her skull thrust its way forward. Her eyes rolled wildly then fell backward inside their sockets. Her mouth stretched, cheeks tearing, and the front of her skull pushed through the opening in some grotesque parody of birth.

Beau grabbed Jaz and hauled her backward. “We’re nearly out of here!”

Jaz tried to block out the sounds as Kaylee’s skeleton ripped free of her body. Its bloody claws stretched after them. Unfortunately, as they crashed through the next set of doors, they still didn’t find themselves outside. Instead, they turned into a long, dark room, the air thick with fake cobwebs.

“The spider room!” Jaz said. “The emergency exit was in here before!”

Jaz hunted the corners of the room. Through the gloom and cottony masses of web, she spotted the familiar green of an exit sign.

“Over there!”

Something scurried through the darkness. Jaz remembered the big, black, bony spider with the human skull. She hurried forward, pulling Beau along the track. They ducked beneath ropes of webbing but had to move through it to get to the exit sign. Thrusting their hands through sheaths of fake cobwebs, they tore holes that they could pass through but the material was thick and tough and sticky. Like the other rooms, the layout seemed to change as they moved, the darkness and obstruction making their progress hard to judge. Jaz wasn’t sure if they would ever really reach the exit.

“Please! Please!”

Then finally, there it was, an exit door appeared right in front of her. The glowing green sign sat directly above it. The door looked ordinary enough, painted a dark green that blended into the blackness but with a metal push bar across the middle.

“We made it!” Jaz said.

“Jaz, Jaz, help me!” Beau said.

Looking back, Jaz realised that Beau’s arm had jerked free from her grip. He’d become tangled in a curtain of fake webbing. No matter how he twisted and turned, he couldn’t break free from it.

“Help me!”

Jaz hesitated. She was about to return to him when she sensed movement in the web. Black, bony limbs reached around Beau’s shoulders. Beau screamed and doubled his attempts to break free. A black skull, fangs bared, appeared out of the darkness above his head.

Spinning in place, Jaz turned back on the door. She was surprised when the push bar actually gave way. So surprised that she nearly tripped as she staggered into the night air. Beau’s screams chased her from the haunted house.

“Help! Help me, help!” Jaz yelled, stumbling away from the building.

The carnival was empty and closed down for the night. Jaz staggered around to the front of the haunted house’s facade. That giant, horrible skeleton in its grim reaper hood leaned over the roof. The rollercoaster no longer ran. The ferris wheel still had fairy lights blinking up and down and across its spokes but none of its seats were occupied and it no longer moved.

The carnie was gone from the platform in front of the haunted house. Jaz felt relieved. She didn’t know what his deal was but he must have known something about what went on inside that hellish ride. She looked elsewhere for help but the rest of the fairway was also abandoned.

“Help me, please!”

Light spilled from one of the carnival games. As she got closer, Jaz sensed movement and saw shadows inside. With a wave of relief, she picked up speed toward the game.

“Hello? Can you help me? My boyfriend-, the haunted house, it was horrible!”

Jaz staggered to the counter of the ringtoss game. The carnies had their backs to her and stayed silent. They were too skinny, their clothing hanging off of them as if from hangers. She already knew what they were before they started to turn. More skeletons. She couldn’t say whether they were plastic or real, it didn’t really matter. Their jaws hinged open as if laughing. Bony hands reached in her direction.

“No, no!”

Jaz stumbled back. The carnival closed in around her. The sky wasn’t the sky, it was a painted ceiling. The other games, the rollercoaster, the ferris wheel, they were just set pieces, undersized parts of the backdrop using tricked perspective. The grass underfoot was fake and a track ran down the middle of the fairway. She was still inside. More skeletons swarmed from between the fake games and rides. Skeletons in different costumes, in different colours, skeletal dogs and a giant, skull-headed spider, and skeletons still raw and bloody.

“No, please! Help, help!”

Jaz retreated the way she’d come. The facade of the fake haunted house loomed. The giant skeleton peered over the roof. Suddenly, one of its bony hands peeled free, ripping apart its supports, and reached for her. Its massive hand scooped her off her feet and hauled her, screaming, into the air.

xXx

The next day, the carnival was broken down, packed onto trucks and trailers, and driven to the next town. The haunted house broke apart into two halves, was covered in tarps, and was loaded on the back of its own specific trailers. At the next town, like a giant puzzle, the house and the rides and the rest of the fair was reassembled ahead of its next opening night.

Toward the end of the evening, announcements came over the speakers that the carnival would soon be closing. Most people poured toward their cars. Some tried to get in a last game or ride before they left. A group of four wandered the fairway, tickets in hand.

“Let’s just go home,” one of the four said.

“I don’t want to waste these last tickets! What about the haunted house?”

“It looks stupid.”

“Come on, it’ll probably be funny!”

Warning signs were plastered across the front of the haunted house. A giant skeleton leaned over the roof, eyes glowing. The skinny, almost cadaverous carnie at the entrance took their tickets and conjured a battered car covered in fake blood, with ‘666’ on its license plate.

“Y’all will be my last customers of the night,” the carnie said. “Make sure to keep your arm bones and legs bones inside the car at all times, if you want to keep them attached to your shoulder bones and hip bones that is! In front of you is a lever that will stop the car in case of an emergency, but please don’t leave the car under any circumstances.”

“What kind of emergency?” one of them asked.

“Oh, any kind,” the carnie said, leering. “Bone voyage.”

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Sean: When I was about ten or eleven, I got to run the haunted house for our school fete. Like I was the ‘director’ who got to design the whole thing, cast everyone in their roles, and run it on the day. I remember it ran across two classrooms with a little miniature room in the middle, the miniature room was the witch’s house and the second classroom ended with the werewolf swamp where I also played one of the werewolves along with my friends. I remember just agonising over details in the swamp, like filling it with little bugs and shit that no one was ever going to be able to see in the darkness, but I cannot even remember what was in the first classroom. I had a whole book full of how to make haunted house stuff that I used to go over. My parents refused to engage in Halloween since it’s considered an American holiday here but I would’ve been all over that if I could!

Anyway, I had this idea in the back of my head for a haunted house ride that just goes on and on and on without stopping but I didn’t have any real plot beyond that. It’s why I think doing stuff like Mixtape kind of works for me because it forces me to narrow down some of my ideas and make them work for a particular title instead.

I’ve updated the Mixtape mixtape with a couple of new tracks for what’s coming up, but before the next story my wife and I should have a new addition to our family! She is being induced on November 4th and obviously I’m both very excited and very nervous about what’s to come. For updates in the meantime, you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram.

Next Track: Everclear – Santa Monica