Spookyness

Mayhem Mountain

*Credit to  The_Dalek_Emperor on reddit* 

“In two miles take exit 19 for Valley Park Drive South.” Siri chirped from my sister’s phone.

“Charlotte, turn that off. I know where I’m going.”

“You sure about that? I mean…it has been a couple decades, Mark.”

“Please, like I could ever forget where Adventure Valley is. Come on, we spent every summer of-“

“There it is!” I swerved briefly into the oncoming lane as Charlotte thrust her arm in front of my face to point excitedly out the window. “There’s Adventure Valley! Oh my God, what ride is that? That coaster, it was called ‘Steel’ something, right? No, no, wait, that’s Mayhem Mountain, isn't it?”

I gently pushed my sister’s arm out of my face and back over to her seat. I couldn't fault her for her excitement while I was trying so hard to control my own giddiness. It felt like we were kids again, yelling and bouncing in the back seat of my parent’s car as the first shining rails and wooden planks of the park’s roller coasters came into view above the treetops.

“That’s the Steel Viper.” I told her. “Mayhem Mountain’s on the other end of the park. And that wooden coaster over there is the Excalibur.”

“Oh yeah! I remember those! I was always too much of a wus to ride the viper but I rode the shit out of the Excalibur.”

“Well, Charlotte, you’re an adult, now. I think it’s time to take on the Viper.”

“As long as the contractors have tested it and given it the okay, I’m in.”

That was really the question, wasn’t it? We didn’t know which rides had been inspected and cleared and which ones hadn’t. I sent up a silent prayer that Mayhem Mountain was counted among the rides that had. I’d left Brandon several voicemails asking about it since he was the one in charge of everything. But with how fast things had been moving since we’d bought the park, I couldn't fault him for being a busy man.

If you'd told 12 year old me that my crazy, hyper, wild-eyed friend Brandon Decker would end up graduating cum laude from Northwestern business school I would have laughed in your face. Brandon? No way. Tyler, maybe, but never Brandon. In fact, half the reason I think he choose a business designation was because of Adventure Valley. When the park had closed in 1989 Brandon had gathered us all together in his basement and, with a gravitas and solemnness I’ve never seen in him before or since, asked us to make the pact.

At the time the promise had been the most serious vow that five 12 year olds could ever make. High off of an entire summer of Adventure Valley fun, we agreed, with all the ceremony of a meeting of parliament, that we would one day come together and buy Adventure Valley Amusement Park.

Of course, back then we’d planned to just buy it and ride the roller coasters into the ground. We decided which friends from school we would let in and which enemies would be barred from the gates. It had always been our park, and it was only right that we should have it.

It had taken twenty years but we eventually did fulfill our promise. With a hell of a lot of pushing from Brandon (and a sizeable offer of collateral from Tyler) the bank had agreed to give us the multi million dollar loan to buy, repair, refurbish and reopen the park. The size of the loan that the six of us were responsible for gave me nightmares for several weeks. How would this place ever turn a profit? It had been closed decades ago after operating in the red for several years. The county had experienced a high number of runaways and missing persons in the area in the last years of the 1980s. The entire region was on edge as the cases mounted and people in the area became depressed and suspicious of each other. It had absolutely killed park attendance.