My friends and I are going to die here, but I’ll die more times than them, I think.

This trip was supposed to be a chance for me to turn over a new leaf. My first real road trip after three years in college.

The car ride here seemed normal enough at first. I was in the back with the luggage on one of those tiny extra seats that large SUVs sometimes have. There was no legroom, but I couldn’t complain. I never got invited to things like this. I was happy to tag along. They could have strapped me to the roof for all I cared.

Antoine sat quietly in the driver’s seat, his shoulders tense, his eyes hyper-focused on the road. He was usually talkative, always ready to provide his opinion on any given topic, but as we neared our destination, he had gone silent. I hadn’t known him for very long, but I could still tell he was uncharacteristically nervous.

In the front passenger seat, his girlfriend Kimberly reached a hand over to him and gently grasped the crook of his elbow. “Everything will be okay,” she said softly. “We’re here for you. You know that right?” Most guys in our graduating class had a crush on Kimberly. She had long blonde hair and natural poise.

Antoine shrugged his broad shoulders and nodded his head. “I know,” he said with practiced confidence. “I’m just excited. That’s all. That’s to be expected.”

Kimberly ran her hand up his bicep and onto his shoulder affectionately.

Antoine looked worried to me, but none of us really knew what Antoine was feeling. How could we?

Eight years earlier, his older brother Christian had decided to start over. He left behind his family, his college education, and an all-but-guaranteed career in professional football after graduation. No one knew why he had done it, and what sparse communication he had made with his family afterward had left more questions than it had answers.

My first thought was that Chris had joined a cult, but even I knew not to suggest that to Antoine.

Chris had gotten back in touch with Antoine a few months earlier. Antoine said it was like answering a phone call from a ghost. Eight years with no contact, and then suddenly he was Facetiming with his brother every night.

That phone call was what led to the road trip.

We were on our way out to Chris’s lake house in some exclusive resort town in the Ozark Mountains.

When I was invited on the trip, I took the chance to look up Christian Stone. When he took off, he was being talked about on SportsCenter and in blogs on college football. From the sound of it, the guy would have been a millionaire if he had kept at it. He had huge prospects. I couldn’t imagine why he had left it all behind. Then again, if he had a lake house, he couldn’t have been doing too poorly.

The radio went out about twenty minutes before we got to our destination. Antoine flicked the scan button on the steering wheel to try to find a station. The radio searched and searched for a broadcast but only found one.

“It’s RUN 41.1 Carousel Public Radio. We’ve had a beautiful day here in Carousel. The city council has begun setting up for the Centennial Celebration, so stay away from town square unless you like traffic. Our correspondent, Jeffrey Tethers, is at Lake Dyer with the fishing report, and we have Coach Boom in the studio to talk about Friday night’s game. All after this commerc—”

Antoine clicked the radio off. “I’m going to pass them on the next straightaway,” he said. He had been growing frustrated at the small car in front of us. They were creeping along the road at a measly thirty miles an hour. We had been behind them for twenty minutes, but with the winding, heavily forested roads, there was no safe place to get around them.

“Just be patient,” Anna said from the backseat. “We can’t be too far off.”

As she spoke, a green VW van approached us from behind. It had to slow down considerably upon reaching us. Its horn began honking almost immediately.

“Great, now we have a car behind us,” Antoine said.

As if to change the subject, Kimberly interjected, “I have no signal. Does anyone have a signal?” She raised her phone up toward the sunroof to no avail.

I checked my phone. I had no signal either. I had one new message.

Camden, my oldest friend, had just sent a picture of a sign advertising a bed and breakfast that had the phrase “closed fur renovations.” He had taken the picture some miles back when we stopped for gas. I chuckled at the typo. We must have lost signal right after that.

It had been a long time since I had been a part of a group chat with Camden. Not since sophomore year in high school. Camden and I had been best friends in middle school, but not as much afterward. He had somehow managed to thread the needle of being smart and popular. I barely managed to accomplish the first part.

At some point in time, the geeks and the nerds go their separate ways. There was no animosity between us. It was just hard talking about the good old days when the good old days were from before you finished puberty. We had grown up so much since then. I spent my time watching scary movies and puttering about online between classes. He spent his time with competitive internships and scholastic competitions.

Honestly, when I got the invite to the lake house, I was surprised. I hadn’t heard from him in over a year.

As we crept around another corner, the VW van gunned its engine and quickly passed by Antoine’s SUV and the little car in front of us. That must have emboldened Antoine because he followed suit and left the slow car in the dust.

Ten minutes later, after zooming around tight, forested corners, the small backwoods road gave way to a large parking lot. It was so big I thought we must have been near an airport or a sports arena. There was no airport though. No football stadium either, nothing to justify the huge empty lot.

There were maybe a few dozen vehicles scattered about, but they were few and far between. What’s more, there were no people anywhere. It was completely abandoned. Except for us and the VW van, which had been parked in the shade. The driver, a dark-haired woman in her mid-thirties, carried a large, overstuffed backpack along with a sports duffel. She wore a brown leather jacket and distressed blue jeans.

Antoine parked next to her van in the shade.

“Carousel,” I read aloud off of a large sign at the front of the parking lot.

“Yeah,” Antoine said as he opened the back of his SUV. “Paradise, USA.”

There was only one road leading from the parking lot to Carousel, and it had been blocked off. It had those removable metal poles that you might see on a college campus designed to keep cars from driving down the wrong street. They were locked into place with padlocks. We would have to go the rest of the way on foot.

When we were invited, Antoine’s brother Chris had warned us of this. It was because of the Centennial Celebration Carousel was having. No traffic allowed in. It made enough sense to me. It didn’t matter; we were there to bask in the sun at his brother’s lake house. We would stay out of town for the most part.

I had the least luggage of anyone in the group, just one duffel. As they were retrieving their things from the car, I went ahead toward the road leading to Carousel. The path was decorated on both sides with advertisements for the Centennial Celebration—apparently, this was a big deal for the town.

The woman in the brown leather jacket had slowed her pace and was taking in her surroundings. We weren’t in town yet. There were no street signs here, no people. Just off the road was a single wooden building that had little signage except for a door that read “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” It also had a covered porch on the front and what looked to be a town map hanging against the side of the building.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I debated whether I should try to speak to the woman. She didn’t look like she wanted to talk to me or anyone else. She was all business. The way that she scanned the building led me to believe that she hadn’t been here before either.

I turned and waited for my friends to catch up. Antoine and Kimberly quickly joined me, but Anna and Camden were lagging behind staring at the cars in the parking lot. I walked down to them to see what they were so interested in.

“These cars have been here a long time,” Camden said. “The tires have dry-rotted.”

He was right. Every vehicle in the parking lot but ours had flat tires. Their windshields were covered in dust. Their paint jobs were faded. I didn’t know what to think of it.

“That’s strange, right?” I asked.

“Yep,” Camden said. “Maybe this is long-term parking, and the other cars were moved for the Centennial.”

“That makes sense, I guess.”

“Look,” Anna said, “we’re here to support Antoine. Worst case scenario, we’ll just get the hell out of dodge. Don’t go acting weird. He has enough to worry about.”

Just as we turned to walk up the road, the little compact car that we had passed on the way here finally pulled into the huge parking lot. We watched as it slowly drove its way to the front of the lot and parked beside Antoine’s SUV. Two people exited the vehicle along with luggage. They were arguing.

Well, the woman was arguing. The man was just kind of taking it.

“I just don’t understand why they would hold an event all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. Don’t they know it’s more sensible to hold it in a bigger city?” The woman spoke with a waver and a voice like a mouse whose tail had been stepped on.

I wouldn’t say they became part of our group, but they definitely started moving with us as if they thought we were all supposed to be grouped together.

“You all here for the convention?” the man said. “Name’s Bobby Gill.”

He held out his hand. I extended mine for a handshake. “Riley Lawrence,” I said.

“They don’t need to know your name,” the woman said to Bobby Gill. “This place gives me the creeps. Let’s just go.”

“It’s just polite, Janet,” Bobby Gill said. He looked over at us expectantly. “So how about this convention, huh? I can hardly think I’m so excited.”

Camden responded, “We’re not here for that. We’re just going to the lake.”

“Ah,” Bobby said. “Carousel is holding a horror convention you may know. Carousel Horror Nights. They have for nearly three decades.” He could barely contain his excitement. “I’ve been asked to be a guest speaker. I moderate one of the top horror boards on the internet. Arterial Oasis. If you’ve heard of that.”

I had heard of it. I didn’t say so because his wife Janet looked annoyed at my presence.

I got an easy out when we heard a loud bang up ahead.

We moved closer to investigate.

“Were you trying to break it off its hinges?” Camden asked.

The door that read “employees only” was now open.

“I just knocked on it,” Antoine said. “I heard someone in there.”

“I don’t see anyone,” Anna said.

The woman who drove the van was peeking her head in as Antoine and Kimberly watched.

The inside of the building was dark. Little light managed to seep in and even the open door didn’t illuminate the shadows within. I couldn’t imagine anyone was in there. My heart started to beat quickly though. I couldn’t say why.

Then music started to play. It was old-fashioned carnival music that came out too slow, like it was coming from an old wind-up music player in need of a tune-up.

Next were the lights. Yellow-white light bulbs illuminated the inside of the room. The lights weren’t hanging from the ceiling. No, they were all affixed to a machine that was about the size of an ATM. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw what the machine was: one of those old animatronic fortune tellers. The kind that might be seen at carnivals or on boardwalks. Every circus has at least one, and they could even be found in an arcade.

Normally, the animatronics would give you a rolled-up fortune in exchange for a quarter. It might even be programmed to tell your future out loud. Often, they were dressed like psychics or traveling palm readers. This one was different.

The base was a red square box, and above that, a glass box contained the upper torso of a smiling figure. He was dressed like an old-fashioned usher that you might see at a movie theater. He wore a red jacket with brass buttons and a round usher’s cap with a chin strap, and in his hand, he held a flashlight that flicked on and off along with all the other light bulbs attached to the machine.

Across the top of the machine was a sign that read “Carousel’s own Silas the Mechanical Showman.”

In the middle of the machine, right below the glass case, was a red button with a receptacle underneath.

For a moment, no one in the group said anything as the fortune-telling machine began whirring to life. I think Antoine might have cursed under his breath, and Kimberly gasped. Beside me, the woman, Janet, was pulling on her husband’s arm.

After the carnival tune ended, the dummy in the glass case began to speak. His little wooden mouth moved up and down with a slight clack of yellow teeth.

“Welcome to Carousel, the town where movies come to life. The show’s about to start, and you’re in the front row!” he said in a slightly warped mechanical voice.

“What the heck,” I said.

“Come on up and get your tickets. The Centennial Celebration awaits.”

No one moved.

“Are we supposed to get a ticket?” Anna asked, looking at Antoine. After all, he was the one who invited us.

“I have no idea. Chris didn’t say anything about this,” he responded.

As if to answer the question, Silas the Mechanical Showman said, “No admittance without a ticket. You don’t want to miss the show!”

Antoine shrugged his shoulders and approached the machine. He pushed the red button and the gears inside the mechanism turned, releasing three large tickets into the receptacle underneath. Antoine retrieved them and began to read through them. He didn’t say anything as he read, but a puzzled look appeared on his face.

Before I could ask what the ticket said, Kimberly had also pushed the red button and retrieved her tickets. Then the woman in the brown jacket, followed by Anna and Camden. The couple who had arrived in the small car each pressed the button after each other, though the woman absolutely did not want to, from the look on her face. Finally, it was my turn.

I pressed the button, and three tickets slid out. As I picked them up, I noted how heavy they were, how thick. They were printed on high-quality stock, and each was cool to the touch. Each of the tickets had a title, an illustration, an elaborate graphic design, and a text description.

“These are awesome!” Bobby said. “They really go all out with this convention.”

I don’t know what I had expected to be on the tickets, but I certainly didn’t expect what I ended up seeing.

One of my tickets was blue, another green, and the one that interested me the most at first, for whatever reason, was silver.

Still, no one said anything as we each reviewed our tickets.

My silver ticket read:

The Film Buff

Minor Archetype

You are the Film Buff. The master of the unwritten rules of horror movies. You’ve seen every slasher, spine-tingler, and creature feature; now we will see if you can survive them in real life! With your help, your allies may stand a chance against the nightmarish beings that lurk in the shadows of the silver screen.

That is, if you can get them to listen to you before it’s too late . . .

Base Stats

Mettle – For Feats of Strength and Offensive ability

1

Moxie – To make your performance convincing

3

Hustle – To be Quick, Nimble, Evasive, and to always hit your Mark

1

Savvy – For Perception, Planning, and Deduction

5

Grit – For Willpower, Toughness, and Endurance

1

Plot Armor – Conquering all five aspects of Plot Armor will make you a Master of Horror.

11 (total of all stats)

Was this some strange roleplaying event? Were my friends and I even supposed to get tickets?

My curiosity was piqued. I read further.

My green ticket read:

Cinema Seer

Type: Buff

Archetype: Film Buff

Aspect: ---

Stat Used: Savvy

The Film Buff has seen every horror movie and can guess every twist and turn. When the Film Buff makes a clever prediction about an important and impactful plot event, all allies who hear it will obtain a boost in Grit and Savvy if that prediction is proven true.

Beware, the more predictions the player makes, the less powerful they will become. Predictions must be made On-Screen. Multiple buffs in a single storyline are difficult to perform at the lower levels.

You may not want someone calling out a plot twist in your theater, but you would kill to have someone do it in Carousel.

On-Screen? What could that mean?

The blue ticket read:

Trope Master

Type: Insight

Archetype: Film Buff

Aspect: ---

Stat Used: Savvy

The signature ability of the Film Buff is their ability to understand how monsters and slashers operate within a story. With this ticket, the Film Buff will have insight into which tropes enemies have equipped. This trope works best with high Savvy and close proximity to the enemy.

Enemy tropes have generic descriptions. The clever player will figure out how their tropes will be expressed in each specific storyline.

With great power comes great balancing: during storylines where this trope is equipped, the Film Buff’s Plot Armor will be reduced by half. Hopefully, that’s all that will be cut in half.

The curtains were up.

The show was starting.

The Game at Carousel had begun.