The Brink

I never know what to make of this gift of mine. Some might say it was given to me by God, but I never was a very religious person. They don’t understand because they can’t see. But I can. And what I see doesn’t fit in with my pastor’s sermons, or what the Bible teaches. To me, religion is for people who still have things invisible to them. I wish I had that ignorance. That really would have been a blessing.

I was relaxing at a park, not a mile away from an old amusement park called Six Flags. It was a grey day, the kind that you don’t know whether it will rain or not, the sky swollen with clouds. A boy sat beside me, fairly handsome, with loose brown curls of hair and shinning blue eyes. He leaned against the back of the bench, smiling at a couple of kids playing tag in the grass, slipping and sliding and screaming.

“Cute,” he said.

I grunted. Don’t talk to me.

“You come here often?”

Only if I want to escape your type. “No.”

He nodded, not getting my mental messages. “I visit here a lot, and most of the time I see the same people. I haven’t seen you around.” He glanced around and frowned, an expression unaccustomed to his face. “Then again, I haven’t seen many of these people.”

“Maybe you’re thinking of another park,” I suggested, forgetting myself. A few women, watching the kids playing tag, kept glancing at me nervously. I pretended not to notice.

“No,” he said with a shake of his head. He didn’t notice the moms at all. “My friends and I always meet here. This is our bench.”

I bristled at that. “I don’t see your name on it,” I snapped.

“Of course not,” he chuckled. “I wasn’t saying that you should leave. After all, it is a public bench, isn’t it?”

“Well, then, choose your tones more carefully,” I growled.

The Moms stared at me for a while, then stood and rounded up the children. The young ones complained loudly about the interruption of their game, but their mothers shushed them and hurried them away without a backward glance.

The boy chuckled, leaning forward on his knees to watch the group scurry away from them. “Jeez,” he said. “What’s their problem?”

I didn’t answer, because I knew exactly what their problem was. My gift. Or, rather, my curse.

He recognized that the subject was uncomfortable for me and changed course. “I’m Jason,” he said, holding out a hand.

I regarded the hand, then his face.

He shrugged. “If you’re here often, I might as well get to know you.”

I turned around, pointedly ignoring the hand. “Hannah. So pleased to meet you.”

Jason looked at me for a while, then lowered the hand. “So, um…why do you come here?”

Because I didn’t want to meet your kind. I tried to escape. Can’t you leave me alone? “To relax.”

“My friends and I always meet here before heading to Six Flags,” he said. “Thought I might find them here.”

“You can’t call them?”

“I tried. Their phones are disconnected.”

I nodded absently. “Why did you lose them?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a frown. “It’s been a while since I’ve had much contact.”

I hesitated. “Where are your parents?”

“Gone,” he said with a shrug. “It’s their anniversary.”

“How fun,” I said, but I didn’t mean it.

An ice cream truck wheeled by, an enthusiastic ditty braying through the speakers, slightly sharp and quality that made me cringe. A couple of kids rushed all around us to attack it, like ants to sugar. I was slightly worried they’d carry away the truck.

“You ever been to Six Flags?” he asked.

Loads of times. More than you ever will. “No.”

“Really?” he was aghast. “Everyone around here has been to Six Flags!”

“Well I haven’t,” I snapped, fully turning on him for the first time. “And that makes me no one?”

He gazed at me for a long time, and I held it, coldly and angrily. “Girl, you’re really touchy,” he commented with a crooked smile, cocking his head. “Why’s that?”

Because I’ve seen things that would make your skin crawl. “I don’t know,” I said out loud, pretending to lose interest.

He chuckled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But California people are crazy; No one wants to pay attention to a kid. I tried to find out where my parents were staying, or where my friends are, but hey, it is winter vacation, isn’t it? Anyone could be anywhere and no one would know. No one knows where I am. Not that anyone cares.” He sighed and looked in the direction of Six Flags. “I would like to know where my parents are, though. Never thought I’d miss them.” He chuckled bleakly.

“Have you looked on the internet?” I asked hopefully. “You could’ve found your parents’ names somewhere. Hotel records or something.”

He pursed his lips. “The library computers are ridiculous. They don’t work for me. And sometimes, I’ll be sitting there, and someone will come along and push me out of my seat. I mean, honestly. I hate California.”

I sighed.

It was a little while before we spoke again. A boy and his dad set up a kite in the field, the father patiently explaining the procedure to his son. They were too far away to hear the words, but the man was gesturing so dramatically, you’d think he was trying to flag down an airplane.

“Well, my friends aren’t coming,” said Jason, his voice heavy with disappointment. “I’ll try again tomorrow, I guess.”

“Good luck,” I replied. It was an obvious dismissal that he didn’t pick up.

“I haven’t been there in a while,” he said. “We could go together if you’d like. I’d show you the more fun rides, the kind you’d like.”

I suppressed all efforts to gag. “No, thank you,” I muttered, miserable. The last thing I wanted to do was step into Six Flags.

He laughed. “Don’t worry, they have some gentler rides that we could start out with.”

No, they don’t. I shut my eyes tight. Please, please, please, I don’t want to be around him anymore. Let someone else deal with him, please.

But I knew nobody would. Only I could. Me and my curse.

“Come on,” he said, misinterpreting my discomfort. “It’ll be fun! I’ll pay, alright?”

That won’t be necessary. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

So we went to the park, Jason talking about his friends. It made everything worse.

“Derek’s a real daredevil. Hasn’t been a ride yet invented that he’s been afraid to go on. Even string rides aren’t intense enough for him. He has to go on all the rides that have deaths behind them. I swear, that’s the way he will die, someday. It’s the way he wants to die. Bryce is a bit shyer, though. Drops freak him out. Loops, too, but not as much as drops. He can take loops because they press you into the seat and make you feel safe, even if you don’t have any seat belt. But drops tug at you, do everything they can to pull you out. Tyler was always unbuckling his seatbelt. Thinks he’s invincible, the idiot. But we all love him.” He glanced my way suddenly, frowning. “You okay?”

I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, trying a smile. I wasn’t successful. “Yeah,” I answered shakily. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good.” He flashed a brilliant smile. “We should be there soon. Prepare yourself for the awesomeness of Six Flags!”

I tried to smile again. A pitiful attempt, really. I hadn’t smiled since I was five.

We turned the corner, and he stopped, confused.

I sighed wearily. “Welcome to Six Flags.”

I remember the block red lettering that stood suspended on a white-metal web, but now the S, the L, and the g of the original "Six Flags" remained. A bird’s abandoned nest spilled from a jagged hole in the F. The ticket windows were boarded up with warped wood, and old posters advertising rides hung torn and faded from the walls, fluttering weakly in the breeze.

Poor Jason looked confused. “I…the park was up and running just days ago…”

I sighed and looked away, trying to keep the pity from my face. I couldn’t bear it.

“Well, no point in coming all this way for nothing,” I said grimly. I walked up to the gates and easily hopped them. No one would be there to check if I had a ticket, and no security cameras or sensors would scream that I had stepped into the park without one.

Jason came behind me, if a little hesitantly. He moved as if in a dream, a dazed look on his face. Flattened coke bottles and discarded candy wrappers crinkled under his feet, the only sound in this graveyard of a place. He froze, staring at a poster portraying an old-fashioned mining cart careening down the track out of control. The people in the cart were clinging to the sides in terror, eyes wide. One man had a hand clamped on a cowboy hat to keep it on. One girl’s bonnet flew off behind her. The name of the ride had been scrawled with blood-red ink above the picture in an arc: Dynamite.

“That was the one Derek wanted to go on,” he said, his voice small. “We all couldn’t wait until it opened.”

I turned away, biting back tears.

“Except Bryce.” He seemed to become a ghost, a wispy voice and a thin, hunched frame. “Bryce didn’t want to go.”

I drew a trembling breath. “Jason…”

He turned to me with pleading eyes, begging me to tell him that it was all a dream, that we were in the wrong park. He seemed ready to believe anything I told him, just as long as I saved him from this nightmare.

But the truth was worse.

I sighed and closed my eyes. “Maybe I should just…show this to you. I can’t explain it.”

I turned and walked down the park. I knew the way. I’d done this before, both in real life and in nightmares. And now, I was reliving each horrible moment from both.

We reached Dynamite after what seemed like an eternity of walking. I led him through the walkway that snaked towards the main ride. The cars were the same old-fashioned mining carts from the poster, painted a dusty brick red and burnt umber. The real wood lay exposed in patches where the paint had peeled away.

I led him onto the track, then turned towards him. He stopped, looking around him with glazed eyes. I was secretly hoping it would all click for him.

No such luck. “Why are we here?” he asked, his voice dried up as though he hadn’t drunk anything for a long time.

I took a deep breath. “This ride only ran seven times, not including test runs. A pity, really. It looked like fun.”

Still no realization. Or, maybe he did know, but was rejecting it.

“Follow me,” I said, and walked down the tracks, listening to his feet brush the gravel behind me. The tracks were built like train tracks, with thin wooden rails on either side to keep the carts from flying off the edge if it hit a wrong turn.

I scrambled up a hill, climbed down a drop, skipped over the crossing trails of a loop, and finally climbed up a long tunnel of synthesized rock. There was another chain of cars here, leading to the top of the hill, but these were crooked and leaned heavily against each other, as if something had tried to smash them together like a toy slinky. Some had even toppled to the side, so that Jason and I had to jump over a few to press on. Around us, suspended from the ceiling, were fake bats with dusty, plastic fur and red light bulbs for eyes. For this bat, one eye had popped from its socket, swinging comically like a clock’s pendulum measuring time. For that bat, half a wing, revealing a plastic frame and wires that once made them flap like mad. In the cave, there was a strong, musty smell of decay, dust, and wet ash. It made me cough, but Jason seemed unaffected. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that he was too deep into his confused trance to notice a freight train running over his foot. But I did know better.

As we reached the top it got lighter, even in lighting such as today’s. Scorch marks were splayed across the walls, and some of the wooden track had also caught fire, forgotten and allowed to burn until they were twisted like driftwood. The cart at the mouth of the cave had been blown into firewood, scattered across the ground. But it had been sifted through, as if someone had been looking for something among the rubble.

Jason stopped, staring at the shattered cart in shock and disbelief.

Hearing him halt behind me, I turned and put an arm around his shoulder, turning him away and leading him out. “Don’t look at it,” I whispered. It just seemed proper to whisper around here, around him. “It doesn’t concern you.”

I stopped at the crest of another drop. The track plummeted steeply and turned sharply to the side, into a sideway run. One side of the rail had been broken through, and the shattered remains of the front cart were sprawled around the concrete below. Among them were some dark stains that could’ve been anything if you didn’t already know what they were.

“This,” I said softly, “is what concerns you.”

He knelt on the track, his hands on the low rails, looking down at the cart. He looked so small and helpless in that position, and I tried my hardest to keep back the tears. You’ve done this before, Hannah. This is nothing new.

“You’re not real, Jason,” I whispered. “You’re…no longer…alive.”

Jason drew a shuddering breath. “I’m dead.”

“Yes.”

He kept silent, looking down on the remains as if he wanted to join them and splatter himself across the pavement to end this. But he had already been splattered across the pavement, and that hadn’t ended anything.

“Six Flags has been shut down for a couple of years, now,” I explained, “because of this tragedy. Sure, people have died on rides before, but not this many. Eleven deaths, enough to get the government to shut down the park altogether.”

He turned his head against his shoulder, trying to hold back tears. But he couldn’t. I cried myself, familiar tears that trailed down my cheeks. Just seeing these people made me want to cry. But seeing them like this, aware of what had happened, made it impossible to keep tears away.

“Your cart broke off and went out of control,” I explained. “The disconnection of the wires sparked a fire in the second car, and everyone in there was burned alive.” I swallowed. “They came first, because they suffered the most. They knew they were dying, and felt the pain of it. It was almost unbearable to show them that cart back there.”

“Bryce came before you,” I continued, “Because he also knew he was dying, and at the last moment, he knew that he didn’t even want to risk himself in the first place, that he could’ve just stayed home and missed this incident all together. He died in anguish, but I helped him on.

“Then came Tyler. At the last moment, he remembered he had no seat belt and thought, irrationally, that if he had left it on, he might’ve still been alive. He died in guilt, but he’s okay now.”

Jason’s shoulders shook with one sob, but then he was still, frozen against the cold sky. “Derek?” he asked softly.

“I don’t think he stayed behind,” I replied, drawing the sleeve of my jacket across my eyes. “You said yourself, this is what he wanted to die doing; taking a risk and having a blast doing it. I imagine he’s already on the Other Side, wherever that is, waiting for you.”

He let out a long breath, as if he had been holding it. He turned to me, tears streaking his face. “Get me out of here.”

I drew a deep breath and pulled him from the suspended track, onto steadier ground. “Well, now that you know that you’re…gone…it should be easier.”

I shouldn’t have said that. Nothing was easy when you realize you’re dead, that you no longer have a chance to change the world around you.

He closed his eyes and groaned, “I should’ve known. Nobody seeing me, nobody hearing me, acting as though they didn’t know I was there.” He looked up at me, trying to dry his eyes with his fingers. “Why can you see me?”

I might very well be schizophrenic. But of course I didn’t say that. It’s always there, at the front of my mind, but I never tell them. It would make them feel worse. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I wish I could tell you.”

I rested my hands on his shoulders and slid him down against the charred plaster, so that he was sitting against the wall. I sat down beside him.

“So you know that…so you know, and you’ve realized that you can’t change anything around you, or interact with this world. You can’t stay here; you have no purpose here.”

He nodded grimly, closing his eyes. “No purpose,” he repeated.

I winced. “Not here,” I corrected. “But beyond here, on the Other Side, you have more purpose than you had in this life. You have friends there, and, I can imagine, ancestors that are wondering why you aren’t there yet. Since I can’t tell you what your purpose is over there, then let them be your purpose. It’s an oversimplification, but it’ll work.” I was sounding way too business-like, but I wanted to get this over with and get rid of him. And I hated myself for it.

He closed his eyes, and new tears followed old paths down his face. There, see. I was struck with guilt, like a knife stabbing into me. I’m not a very patient person. Why was I given this gift?

Biting my lip, I hugged him tightly, hoping to comfort him. He turned and sobbed into my shoulder, making the sleeve wet.

“You don’t belong here,” I whispered. “Move on to where you are needed.”

He let out a deep sigh, relaxed, and was gone.

For a moment, I felt as though I was hugging a stone pillar that had been soaking in the sun. It was a warmth that spread through my arms, my skin, my bones, my heart, and reaching the very innermost core of me. It was a wonderful feeling, like gratitude.

Then it was gone. I was back in the musty cave, surrounded by death. I pulled my knees up against my chest and sobbed.

I cried for a long time.

{This is an idea I'm playing with, so it might not be as good as it could be. But I'm not very good at foreshadowing. How long before you realized that Jason was dead? Thank you very, very much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!}