Morbid Mountain

My entry into (and out of) "Invalid Item" 

This story is not finished, it's turning into a longer story than I had originally intended for my entry. (Yay! My muse is back!)

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MORBID MOUNTAIN

         “Alright guys, unfortunately there has been a change of plans. We can’t get into the theme park today. Apparently there’s some rich little shit that has booked out the whole park for the day for his birthday.” A collective round of groans, mumblings and a few choice words echoed through the bus. “So instead we are going to another, smaller theme park. The guy on the phone told me about it when I asked for some other tourist attraction nearby. He was hesitant but finally told me. It’s about an hour away so we’ll stop in at a servo to stretch the legs and grab something to eat.”

         I watched our host turn to the bus driver then sit down in the front seat. She was busily typing on her phone; I assumed looking for the place we were going to. They were husband and wife; this was their job, taking tourists around to the tourist attractions. Part of the hotels service. We were on a mini bus; there were only twelve of us, including our hosts. They were pretty cool, knowing how to captivate their audience, they were in their mid-forties. The other ten of us were younger ranging from nineteen to thirty-one.

         “Are you gonna tell us what it’s called?” Michael the big brute of a guy called from the back. He acted tough but you could tell that it was only an act. My friend and I had nicknamed him Bruiser when we had set off on this journey three days ago. Each time we got onto this little tour bus, there were the same passengers, so now we all knew each other’s names.

         Margaret’s head snapped up from her phone and she turned in her seat, kneeling up on it. “Oh, sorry, yes, it’s called,” she paused and cleared her throat, looking over her shoulder at Gary, her husband and our driver, he gave a curt nod and she continued. “Well, it’s not a ‘happy fairyland’,” she did the air quotes as she spoke, “like what we were going to go to; it’s a horror themed theme park. It’s called Morbid Mountain. But the guy assured me that it is a great park with lots of fun rides and stuff. Because of the horror theme aspect it’s just not a very well-known park. He said lines will be quite short so short waiting times for the rides.” This time approval rippled through the bus.

         Anna gripped my arm tightly, I turned to look at her. Her brown eyes were wide with fear, she wasn’t a fan of horror or scary things. “Do you think they’d take me back to the hotel?” she hissed in my ear, squeezing my arm tighter.

         “Come on, it won’t be that bad, just fake horror, no worse than the horror houses we’ve been too.” I said as I pried her fingers away from my arm, her nails were digging into my skin. But I secretly hoped that the horror would be of a better grade, a bit more realistic. I loved to be scared and couldn’t wait to see this Morbid Mountain theme park.

         The first thing I saw when we pulled into the driveway was a long since abandoned car in the parking spot closest to the road, it had a tyre missing and two of the windows had been smashed in. Tall grass grew around the remaining tyres. The red paint was faded almost to a pink and you could see rust spots on the roof and bonnet. The rest of the parking lot was mostly vacant.

         There were about two dozen cars parked near the entrance and two other buses, both coach sized. A small caged off area to the right of the entry held about the same amount of cars inside as there were in the parking lot, a sign on the gate declared STAFF ONLY painted in big dark red letters. We weren’t the only people here, but at least there weren’t a lot of people here either. I was expecting a lot more than what I could see with the cars. I could hear the others on the bus mumbling their approval at the lack of customer cars as well. We pulled into the first bus park, the two coaches were in bays three and four.

         “Well it looks like we’re here everyone.” Margaret said as she stood at the front of the bus. “And it looks like those short waiting times we were told about are going to be very, very short lines. Once we get inside we will organise a time and place to meet, hopefully they have park maps to hand out.” We all piled out of the bus.

         I finally looked up at the entrance properly, I had been too focused on looking at the cars, or lack thereof, in the parking lot. A big green and brown mountain shaped sign sat above the entrance and big red letters painted in a dripping font stated the name of the park across the middle of the mountain. Welcome to Morbid Mountain. As a group we approached the only booth without a rope pulled across the entrance, Margaret and Gary at the front of the pack. The window was dark and a sign was taped to the glass to the left of the gap to talk through. The price list.

The Ghoulies welcome you to
Morbid Mountain
Entry Fees:
(includes all rides and attractions)
Kids under five free
Kids five to fourteen $6.00
Kids fifteen to nineteen $12.00
Adults twenty and up $18.00

Don’t forget to purchase your Morbid Money!
All gift shops and cafes herein accept Morbid
Money only. Other currencies are seen as
foreign and will not be accepted by our friendly
Ghoulies. For your convenience there are
foreign exchange booths located around the
park near the cafes to get your Morbid Money.

         “Why would someone bring young kids to a horror theme park?” Anna asked as she studied the sign on the window. I shrugged in response. “At least it’s going to be a lot cheaper than what we were expecting to spend today. Hopefully the exchange rate on the Morbid Money is fair and one for one.” I heard Lisa and David agree with Anna behind me.

         "Who knows, but I'm excited for this, I can't wait to get in there and have a look around, see what kinds of rides they have and how scary it actually is." I said to her and watched as Gary reached into the gap at the window, hitting the silver bell sitting just inside. Instead of just dinging it sounded off a loud roar that made all of us jump and take several cautious steps back away from the window.

         "What the he-"

         "Hello, welcome to Morbid Mountain. How many in your party?" What looked like a female Zombie stood at the window. Her skin was pale and greying; her black hair was unkempt and looked like it had clumps of mud and grass stuck in it. She had two deep lacerations on her face and what looked like maggots crawling around inside the wound. Gary stared in shock, as did half of the group.

         Margaret was the first to react and stepped forward. “Twelve all together, two are nineteen.”

         “Ah, very good.” She typed away on the keyboard in front of her then turned to the screen. “So with today’s discount the price for the group is $68.14.” she smiled at Margaret who still stood at the front of the line. “Did you need individual prices or will the group price be alright?”

         Margaret looked at the sign; I could see she was doing quick calculations. “No, no, the group price is fine.” She opened her purse and found the money in her wallet. “And what about the Morbid Money? Can we get it here or do we have to get it from inside the park?”

         “I can exchange your foreign currencies here. If you require more throughout the day there are the exchange booths near most of our cafes.” She said. As she smiled I watched a maggot fall out of one of the lacerations on her cheek, it rolled down her blouse and onto the counter.

         One by one everyone handed over differing amounts of money from their wallets and in return received red notes. What looked like a gargoyle sat in the center of the notes, it had its mouth open in a roar and one paw lifted to catch its prey. The notes were in ones, tens and hundreds. It was strange that the park would refuse to accept our regular money inside. But it was just a part of the attraction.

         “And do you have a map of the park for us to use?” Margaret asked the Zombie lady.

         “Of course. Once you get inside there will be an information booth to the left where you can grab a map. We also suggest filling out the form for your Will, in case you get scared to death.” The group laughed, but the Zombie’s eyes showed no humour, in fact they showed nothing. They were glazed over, no pupils or iris showing.

         “Anna, look at her eyes. Those must be the full eye contacts. They look so awesome and so convincing.” I whispered to Anna who pulled a face as she looked at the Zombie, I could tell she still wasn’t happy about being here at Morbid Mountain, but I was excited and couldn’t wait to get inside.

         “How can she see anything through them?” She asked me, I shrugged.

         The Zombie smiled again as she pressed a button which lifted the boom gate for us to enter. “Please enjoy your time here at Morbid Mountain. Any of Morbid Mountain’s Ghoulies are available for questions should you have any queries, or if you lose your way, please don’t hesitate to ask. Any body bags that accumulate during your visit can be picked up at the last gift shop called Happy enTrails upon your departure, which is to your right through the gate at the entrance. Have a morbid time.” And with that she was out of the line of sight and we were standing inside the gates at the park.

         “Well this will be interesting. Let’s grab our maps and find a meeting place then we can get to the fun stuff.” Margaret said with a smile as she marched away from the group. Everyone followed her, but we were all looking around excitedly. There were a lot of trees blocking off the view from much of the park, but we could see the taller rides rising above them. Neat pathways wound between the trees. Margaret had a handful of maps and began to hand them out to everyone. “Shall we start at Cafe Court? We’ll grab a bite to eat while we study our maps and then we can go do what we want.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

         Cafe Court had an assortment of different food places, all quick meals to suit the theme parks fast paced atmosphere, including pizza, burgers, nachos, hot chips among many other snack foods. All the drinks came in plastic bottles that were shaped as different monsters, our first souvenir for Morbid Mountain. The cafe we chose to get our meals from was staffed by a team of four werewolves and aptly named Were U Eatin?; each one was at a differing stage of metamorphosis. The order taker was the most human looking with thick brown hair on his arms and down the sides of his face. His yellow eyes seemed to glow and shimmer like a real wolf's eyes would as they caught different light spectrums.

         I looked around at the outdoor eating area we were seated in. Seven cafes surrounded us. The tables and chairs were decent wooden ones, not plastic and metal like the usual cafe seating. Trees surrounded the cafes, cutting them off from the rest of the park. There were two of the foreign exchange booths, one at each end of Cafe Court. A small grassy area in the middle held a very large tree whose branches shaded almost the whole of the outdoor area. I could see another group of people sitting in front of one of the other cafes, they had their heads bent low and seemed to only whisper to each other. They were the first lot of other customers to the theme park we had come across. I watched as one of them looked over at us, for a moment it looked as though he was going to come over and say something but instead he just put his head back down and whispered to his friends.

         As we ate Margaret stood and addressed the group. "So I think that if we meet here at say, five o'clock, that should be a decent day worth of rides and attractions and then we can get something to eat before we head back to the hotel. Everyone has my number in case anything goes wrong, right?” With everyone’s mouths full with food a round of nods from the group answered her. “Great, well, eat up and then head out. Gary and I aren’t your parents so go do your own thing and have fun.”

         Everyone studied their maps, talking a laughing. Anna suggested hitting the game arcade first to let our food settle before we got to the rides and I agreed with her. I really didn’t want to be sick at a theme park. The twins, Tristan and Alexander, were pointing at all the rides, Sarah, their sister, was pulling a face as they pointed excitedly. She came over and knelt between Anna and I.

         “Do you guys mind if I tag along with you, the boys want to get on the rides straight away but I don’t particularly want the first thing I do here to be barfing. I heard you two talking about going to the game arcade first, and I don’t really want to go around the park by myself either.” She said, her eyes studying the map we had in front of us.

         “Of course.” Anna told her. “My brother would do the same thing and want to get in as many rides as possible. My parents were the ones that always had to talk him into doing the game’s first after we ate.”

         I nodded in agreement. “The more, the merrier. We’re guessing it’ll take about three games before the food settles properly, then we’ll see how we feel about tackling a ride. I can’t wait to try the Skewed Skyscraper and the Squalid Swamp ride too.” Sarah smiled and pulled out the chair next to mine, her brothers didn’t seem to notice she had moved away from them, they were too engrossed in discussing the rides they would be going on.

         Lisa and David looked up from their map; they were sitting at the same table as us. “Let’s make it a group of five.” Lisa said with a smile. Anna and I had made quick friends with the two of them; they were the older two in the group and only a couple years older than me. I looked around at the others in our tour group. Michael had moved to sit with the twins clearly in the same frame of mind as them, wanting to get to the rides early. Rajesh and Gaganjyot were a newly married couple and were very quiet; they sat with Margaret and Gary, talking with our guides.

         “Looks like we have three groups ready to head out into the park for the day.” I said and smiled. It was good to see that no one was going to venture out on their own. Sarah looked at her brothers and saw Michael sitting with them, she gave a half hearted shrug but I could tell she was happy there would be someone with them, even if it was Bruiser. Soon we were all on our feet and heading down the path that brought us to Cafe Court, I chanced another glance at the other group of people that were sitting near us. They watched in silence as we left.