A Not So Horrific Short Story

Dart balloons, milk bottles, and the fish bowl throw.

Obstacle courses, mega slides, and face painting.

Ferris wheel, carousel, and the mini coaster.

I’d been at the Jackson Town Carnival with my best friend Jess for three hours and I was beat. I won twelve prizes altogether - a cheap art set filled with crayons and watercolors, two laughing emoji hats, one can of farts, hair chalk, an emoji poop hat, a... fuzzy ball pillow, and five neon rainbow springs. All twelve prizes were sitting in a backpack right next to me on the bench. A bonus prize of several calluses was on my hand, and I could hardly feel my feet. Jess was still riding the mini coaster, which was obviously her favorite attraction here, and didn’t seem to want to go home anytime soon. So I had to entertain myself.

Even though I was right next to my backpack the entire time, when I reached in to try the hair chalk I found a crumpled piece of paper with several phone numbers on it. Upon smoothing it out, I noticed each phone number was written in a different color. The first was red, the second was yellow, and the last was blue. I just stared at the paper with a bewildered expression on my face until I noticed Jess walking up from her latest run on the mini coaster.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, eyeing the paper in my hand. I shrugged and handed it to her. I had no idea what it meant and I didn’t want to be confused alone. She took the piece of paper and stared at it for a bit. After a while, she finally scratched her head and shrugged back at me. She started pulling out her cell phone when I said, “Wait.” For what, I don’t know. It just felt like something bad would happen if she started calling the numbers. Jess paused for a second, but looked back down to her phone. “I’m calling the blue one. Blue is a harmless color.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with that, but I held my breath as she dialed when I remembered something. “Wait!” Jess looked up at me again, with her arms extended. “Dial *67,” I explained. Everyone knew that dialing that first blocked your number. She went back to dialing and I went back to holding my breath.

“Hello?” Jess asked. I looked up at her with wide eyes, wanting to know what would happen next. I was also ready to bolt, as if I could run away from whoever was on the other end of the call.

A few seconds in, Jess raised an eyebrow and hung up. “What?” I asked. She started to look even more confused than she already had and told me what an older sounding man said on the phone. “He said, ‘Congratulations, you picked right. Head on over to the Shuck gas station nearby and your prize will be behind the Twinkies.’”

“What does that mean!?”

“I don’t know, but let’s go over there,” Jess proposed.

“Are you serious? He could be a serial killer."

“Maybe, but there will be people at the gas station. It’s only 8 PM. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You can go by yourself,” I said. I wasn’t ready to trust that the presence of other people would protect us from whoever was clearly messing with me.

“Nah, you’re definitely going. Don’t make me walk to a gas station in the dark all alone, Ash. I’ll buy you your favorite - Pringles.” I was still scared, but if something happened to her on the way to the Shuck I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself and there was no talking Jess out of it. I could tell. I was kind of hungry anyway, and I loved Pringles.

We made it to the front of the Shuck fifteen minutes later. We were going to walk into its store, until we heard someone whispering from the bushes beside it. It took a second to register what I heard, but my eyes went wide. That was extremely creepy and there was no way I would die for a mystery prize behind some Twinkies in a Shuck station store. Jess was opening her mouth when I snatched up her arm and forced her to power-walk with me away from the store. She started to resist a second later and hissed into my ear, “Hey, genius. Walking back to the carnival all alone is the worst idea. Let’s go into the store and stay there until your brother can pick us up.” Okay. Okay, Jess. Good thinking. My brother Joel had a car and was going to pick us up from the carnival, but I was sure he wouldn’t mind coming here. He told me to text him whenever we were ready or he would come ten minutes before the carnival’s closing time, at 9 PM. I snatched her hand up again and began running back toward the store when someone else’s cold hand suddenly gripped my arm. I almost crapped my pants. I almost peed them, too. I let out a loud, involuntary shriek when I turned and saw it was a man dressed in all black. I couldn’t see his face since it was obscured by a black hoodie. I shook his hand off and continued running into the store. The lot was empty, but I was sure someone inside heard me scream. “Wait!” a familiar voice said. “I’m just here to take you guys home. It’s only 8 but I’m beat.” Sure enough, when I turned around the creepy man in the black hoodie was Joel, my brother. Right after I woke, Joel crashed into my bedroom. “Are you okay? What happened?”