The Ride - By Jack Cummins
It was a rainy day by the sea. My parents and I kept going into amusement arcades. We put coins into machines with cascades of pennies waiting to fall and, ones with teddies which needed to picked up with metal grips. My mum and I ventured onto the ghost train ride while my dad stood with the bag of sandwiches. We climbed into the carriage and a man wearing a raincoat got in behind and asked my mum, 'Are you here for the day?'
'Yes, but I grew up by the sea. How about you?
'I'm local,' he said, as the ride began.
Cobwebs were dangling in the blackness and there were lit up images of ghostly forms. I could feel fingers ticking the back of my neck. But, my mum was screaming and at 12, I was not afraid.
'Are you okay?' I asked.
'No. It's the fingers.'
'Everything is fine. It's a ghost train ride.'
She continued to scream and it was completely black.
At last, we emerged into the light. We got off and my mum was trembling. She said, 'The man behind kept touching my back. I thought he was going to strangle me.'
'Yes, but I grew up by the sea. How about you?
'I'm local,' he said, as the ride began.
Cobwebs were dangling in the blackness and there were lit up images of ghostly forms. I could feel fingers ticking the back of my neck. But, my mum was screaming and at 12, I was not afraid.
'Are you okay?' I asked.
'No. It's the fingers.'
'Everything is fine. It's a ghost train ride.'
She continued to scream and it was completely black.
At last, we emerged into the light. We got off and my mum was trembling. She said, 'The man behind kept touching my back. I thought he was going to strangle me.'
Comments (11)
1. Mother appears at the exit strangled and dead.
2. Kid's head explodes during the trip.
3. A nuclear bomb is dropped on the fair and the only survivors are the sammiches in the box.
4. THE END, happy ending, because sammiches actually hate being eaten.
Quality commentary.
here's the real constructive criticism: The story was good, and it was believable. A nice picture of a county fair. HOWEVER. The ending was anticlimactic. The wife was foretold to be mishandled. A mere touch on the neck is not dramatic enough for today's audience.
I have no concrete suggestion how to finish the story. All I am saying is that the story is good, and could be improved with something more dramatic than fingering a kid and his mother's backside of the neck.
I upvoted this story because the writer captured the ambiance of the arcade or the ride. This is an ambient-driven story. But best of all, within the confines of a scary amusement park, the kids are wise and brave because they know it well -- that's their world. If I'm going to a scary park, I'd go with an eleven or twelve year-old, not with another adult, lol. :smile:
But that aside, the fanciful ride of ghost sort of came true for the mother -- there was a real person trying to scare her throughout the ride. But the child, of course, mistaken it as a sign that the mother was scared of the effects of the ride.
A ghost train ride designed to thrill. An amusement. To engage in carnival... or carnal activity. To take someone for a ride; to trick.
Wonderful atmosphere captured. Wet and cold British seaside but no fish'n'chips for them. An expensive treat. Make do with sandwiches...in a sodden paper bag.
A certain time...
The real creepiness starts when:
We climbed into the carriage and a man wearing a raincoat got in behind and asked my mum, 'Are you here for the day?'
Mum chats back, trusting.
Quoting Caldwell
At 12 and not worried about the ghosts or the single man behind them.
Role reversal. An innocent reassuring mum.
Quoting Caldwell
We know something is wrong; darkness.
Then, finally, the light at the end of the tunnel. The reality...
Quoting Caldwell
...or imagination run awry?
A twist or the trick.
The Ride.
***
I like it but I've a horrible feeling I only OK'd it after my first ride through...
Well done :up:
The other implausible aspect, for me, is why she puts up with the tickling all through the ride, and keeps screaming. If she really thought there was a strangler behind her, wouldn't she want to protect her child? Jump overboard, turn around and hit the guy with her purse or something?
Not calmly respond, "No, it's the fingers," instead of "Get down!" Or yelling for help intelligibly?
Dare I say that it was based on an experience that did happen. The reason why I wrote it was because I did always believe that what my mother experienced was her overactive anxious imagination. Recently, I was wondering if the man did touch her neck.
Of course, fitting it all into 200 words meant that I had to leave out a lot of detail. My mother was definitely worried about me and was clutching onto me, fearing him hurting me. It may be that my mother's reaction was atypical, such as saying, 'It's the fingers', and this is because she was such a nervous person in many ways. She was talking about what happened for days afterwards and she or I never went on any fair ground rides ever again. But my own wish to not go on them was that on another seaside trip when I had gone on a small rollercoaster ride by myself I had slipped out of the seat and got dragged along a track and hurt my elbow. So, it was really the end of rides.
That's a shame! It would have made a more understandable story at 500 words.