Writer's Games: Carnival

Task One [Male Entries]

ZACH FORRESTER

"Where the fuck is Ritchie?" Zach spat, panic and fear both evident in his normally calm eyes. The only thing that kept him from grabbing the shoulders of the woman next to him was her age, and that her closed-mindedness might be contagious.

Grandma Lore, Ritchie's grandmother, recoiled slightly, unused to such language. "His name is Richard," she explained calmly, only the slightest hint of anger in her voice. "and your language, even given the situation, is frankly appalling."

"Do you have any idea where Richard is, then?" Zach said, hoping that using his boyfriend's birth name and cleaning up his language would change the woman's mind.

She stood silent for a moment, her brave face wavering slightly. "No, he left to relieve himself before riding the roller coaster."

Zach ran his fingers through his perfectly tousled hair. Perhaps now it wasn't perfectly tousled, but he was too worried about Ritchie to care in the slightest. Cursing, so loudly and foully that it would probably haunt Grandma Lore's nightmares, he paced around. "So he didn't get on the ride, right?"

Grandma Lore, altogether flustered by Zach's language, shook her head. "I don't believe so."

Zach's looked around, at the group of people quickly dispersing around him. Feeling his pockets for his phone, for some way he could contact Ritchie, he remembered he had left everything in the little cubbies before he got on the roller coaster. He had no doubt that the Gamemakers had emptied those by now, just as they had emptied the entire park.

He imagined Ritchie, standing alone outside the carnival. He would be wearing Zach's jacket, he had taken it earlier saying that it was too cold at the carnival. Or maybe he had already taken it off, and was preparing to give it back to Zach. He would definitely be on his phone, maybe playing a game but definitely looking for a message from his boyfriend or grandmother. Ritchie could drive, and, in fact, had driven both Zach and his own grandmother to the carnival. So it would only be a matter of time before he grew tired of waiting and left on his own.

Unless, of course, he was given the news of what was going on inside the carnival. Zach could practically see the tortured expression on his face as he heard that his grandmother and his boyfriend were slated for execution. Would he sleep tonight at all? What would happen if neither of the two survived?

Just thinking of Ritchie was enough to give Zach the motivation to find a hiding spot in the carnival. "We have to go quickly," he said, grabbing Grandma Lore by the wrist. "we've wasted too much time as it is."

Grandma Lore, although she tried, couldn't quite keep up with her young grandson's boyfriend. Her cane, the one thing she had kept with her when she got on the roller coaster, slowed her down considerably. Besides, the ground was uneven, not made for a woman her age to walk on. Zach pulled her along all the same, tugging the old woman towards the restroom where he had left Ritchie.

"Absolutely not!" the old woman protested, as Zach tried pulling her into the men's bathroom. "I'll manage just the same in the lady's room, thank you very much."

Rolling his eyes, Zach nodded and continued into the men's bathroom all on his own. Although it was disgusting, he was certain that he Gamemakers wouldn't check in the bathroom, at least not for a little while. He tried to ignore that a practically countless number of men had been in here throughout the day, at least half in the stall he was hiding in.

Hiding was probably the worst part for Zach: hours of standing on an unclean toilet seat, the nasty smell of a public restroom, and the uncanny feeling that he was being watched. He was practically relieved when the door to the bathroom crawled open, the unbearably handsome Gamemaker stepping through the doorway.