I stay standing in the same spot, staring at him like an idiot.

This guy could be here to kill me, and my dumb ass is just standing in place as if I would allow him to. Maybe I should let him kill me. It would only be natural selection doing its job. If I am stupid enough to stand in place while someone who clearly looks like he just ran through the woods for a whole month trying to escape a murderer, or is a murderer tells me to run, then it is only fitting that I should be taken out of this world.

“Run, you have to leave this place!” He yells.

The urgency in his voice snaps me out of whatever trance that was keeping me grounded, and it makes me want to do exactly what he says.

I quickly look around me and remember where I am. The mirrors and decoys would make it hard to get out of here fast. If I try to run, I would just go straight into another decoy glass wall, but maybe that’s what he wants. I relax a little bit. This is just a joke, he wants to see me run straight into a wall so he can laugh.

I take another look at the boy, the dark circles under his eyes, his slumped shoulders, and the look in his eyes that says listen to me. He’s not joking.

Shit.

“Go! Leave! Get out of here!” He yells on the other side of the glass.

“Get out of the carnival!” His voice sounds muffled, but it still scares me enough to take a step back and make the logical decision to find my way out of here.

It takes me a second to gather my thoughts, and once I do, I realize that doing the same thing I was doing before is probably my best option for leaving this place. I keep my eyes glued to the bottom of the mirrors and decoys until I eventually find myself running through this maze. Left, left, right, left, right, right, right, left, now there is a door in front of me.

I push the door open quickly and run out of the maze. Once I am standing outside again, I am greeted by the bright colors and loud music from the carnival. The cool air of early spring hits me, and that’s when I noticed how hard I must have been running.

“Don’t forget to take your card,” an unfamiliar voice says.

I look to my left and see Devin standing there waiting for me. I look over by the door, and my card pops out of the machine. I slowly take it out and walk over to Devin.

“Did you see that boy in there?” I ask him.

“No,” he says, and by the calm look on his face, I know he is telling the truth. “But you look like you have seen a ghost.”

“There was a boy in there, no older than me, Devin. He was yelling at me to run. He was scaring me.”

He looks at me with concern for a moment, “Maybe he was a decoy. I don’t know about you, but the lady giving me the rules didn’t want to specify what the decoys were. She kept telling me to go inside and that I would find out once I was in there. I think she was talking about the glass, but maybe she was also talking about the boy too.”

That’s a good point, but it still isn’t a good enough reason to scare the crap out of me. “He told me to get out of the carnival,” I tell Devin.

“Maybe he was trying to hit on you, you know. Maybe he was trying to be like, ‘Hay, you should get out of the carnival and go out with me instead,’” Devin says in a deeper and odd kind of voice.

I punch his arm and give him a fake laugh, “That was so not what he meant.”

“Really, because I have seen plenty of guys ask you out in some of the weirdest ways. It is honestly pretty comical to watch. They can make a show about it.”

“Shut up. If he really was a decoy, then why didn’t you see him.”

“I don’t know, maybe he was too busy yelling at someone else or freaking out other easy targets like yourself.”

I am about to say how I am not an easy target when the exit door opens and my Dad comes out. He takes his card from the machine and walks over to us.

“Hey, kiddos, where to next?”

Maybe Devin is right, and I am just overreacting to something that’s supposed to be fun. Devin looks at me, and I put a slight smile on my face and point to the next game.

About an hour goes by, and we have played the majority of the games here. There was another throwing game, but this one involved darts and balloons. There was one where we had to roll balls up a hill into designated holes with various points to earn. There was even a rock wall that Devin and I had to try climbing up while hitting buttons on the way, but we both only made it two-thirds of the way to the top before falling. I frankly thought we would do better at it since we grew up climbing trees all the time.

At another stand, we had to watch a guy put something down and place a cup over it. He moved the cups around, and then we had to guess which cup had the object in it. That was easy since it was similar to a game that Devin and I had played together in the past.

Another game involved cups as well, but it was something we ourselves had to do. We had to see who could flip the most cups over in an untraditional way. I won that one since I found a suitable method and stuck to it.

Our favorite was the one where we got to smack a stuffed rat’s head when it popped out one of the nine holes on a board. We liked it so much that we played it twice, and each time, Devin and I did so well that the man running the booth was very impressed and said that we were only a few points away from one another.

We take a break from playing the games and walk over to a line of tents set up, each one serving a different kind of food.

The first tent we go up to has a grill going. They are making hotdogs and hamburgers, but they have a lot more options for toppings than I am used to seeing. Devin and I both get hamburgers with cheese, bacon, and tomato, which is not typical in our town but it tastes terrific. It makes me wonder if this is common in other towns or if the carnival will be the first time they experience these things too.

Our Dad asks for a hotdog, and the guy taking our order asks if he would like any relish on it. The three of us look at him as if he has five heads. The guy explains that it’s something you can put on the hotdog and gives my Dad a sample of it. After trying it, my Dad says yes to putting that on his hotdog, and then he turns to the two of us to tell us that the relish has a different taste than anything he has ever eaten before.

The next tent had six different ice cream flavors. We didn’t try them since we didn’t want to get too full. Besides, we already have an ice cream shop in our town that we can visit anytime. It may not have the same flavors, but it’s still good.

While walking around, we keep hearing people talk about a Ferris wheel and how fun it is to go on. We grab some hot chocolate that is so good I want to buy a whole gallon of it. They must use a different ingredient than we do, and I wish I knew what it was. Then we make our way to the Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel is massive. We saw it while walking around but did not know what it was called or what it did. It is exceptionally tall and lit with lights that simultaneously change color every few seconds. We see people getting out of and into large buckets that look to be hand-painted.

We quickly get in line and stare at the giant circle that is slowly rotating above us. The ride stops every few minutes to let people out and to let new people in. Once the new people are on, the ride makes two full circles before stopping to repeat the cycle of letting people out and on.

It gets to our turn, and the three of us all get into one of the buckets

“When you get to the top, make sure to look that way.” A guy in uniform points to my right. “You’re going to see a big tent. They are having a big surprise there at nine o’clock and don’t want anyone to miss it.” The guy then closes the bucket door, and we thank him.

After they get everyone else into their own buckets, we start moving. As we go up, I can see the sun just finish setting on the horizon, all the colors in the sky look so beautiful. I wish it could stay like this forever.

Chapter 4

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