A Fairground Job

This is for the "Unexpected Uncovering" Vocal Challenge that you can read about below.

The Prompt

Write a fiction story about someone who has just discovered something awful about their partner.

This was inspired by a suggestion from Mariann Carroll that the meme below would be a great story prompt.

Short

I needed money, I’m not proud, I’ll do anything, especially when I’m broke.

I don’t want to be out on the streets or starving, and if you don’t have an address it’s almost impossible to get a job or bank account, so I always look for work, mostly for cash in hand.

I heard they were looking for casual staff at the funfair, I know people didn’t last long there for one reason or another, but some money was better than none.

At The Funfair

I wandered into the funfair and asked for directions to whoever was doing the hiring, and was directed to a big caravan and the west end of the compound. I walked in and asked the guy, who was having a drink, if there were any jobs going.

He looked at his pad.

“We need someone on the ‘Ghost Train’, we take people on but for some reason they don’t last. I haven’t paid a ‘Ghost Train’ assistant for weeks, but if you go to the ‘Ghost Train’ and ask for Jim, he will fill you in and tell you what to do. Pay is £25 a day, payable at the end of the week.”

That would do me, so I took off to find the ‘Ghost Train’, £25 a day would be fine for me.

After asking a few carneys I found the ‘Ghost Train’ and found Jim. I told him I had signed up to work, and he said “Come on in”. He offered me a can of Coke “Do you want diet or full fat?”

I said I was fine with full fat.

He then said I needed to ride the ‘Ghost Train’ for a few circuits to familiarise myself with it. He asked if I had a mobile phone because the signal could affect some of the effects on the ride. I thought that was a little odd because surely most of the public riding it would have mobile phones. When I pointed this out he just said one less signal makes things less likely to go wrong.

Jim said “If you just put it in this locker with any other valuables and stuff, that will be fine”, he then handed me the locker key, so I was sort of OK with it.

On The ‘Ghost Train’

I sat in the rail cart and Jim set the ‘Ghost Train’ off. I went into the tunnel and was assaulted by plastic ghouls, skeletons, witches, and screaming zombies. The first circuit a lot of them made me jump, but I was getting an idea of what the public would see, but these all seemed basically mechanical so why would my phone have affected them? I thought what the hell, it will be OK and I am getting paid.

Then on the third run, the rail cart took a detour in the tunnel and went down. I wondered why it hadn’t done this on the first two circuits, but maybe it was an extra, but there were no screams or frightening creatures, just a dark tunnel, which ended and the rail cart hit a buffer in a gloomy room which smelt of copper.

I looked round and there were slabs of meat on hooks around the place, the copper smell was blood.

Then I saw a big dark figure with an axe, standing looking at me. That was scary. Then it spoke.

Dark Figure: “Ah meat”

Me: “What, are you real?”

Dark Figure: “You are meat from Jim, we need meat for hamburgers and hot dogs that we sell at the fair”

Me: “This is a sick joke”

Dark Figure: “This is a meat delivery from Jim, you are now on the menu”

Me: “I’m out of here….”

Then it all went black