“Next in line” a sweet yet infinitely bored voice from a teenage girl droned from above.

 

John looked up.

 

Tall steel beams;  stretching from floor to ceiling  of about two feet in circumference, painted in an eye blistering red, vibrated on either side of John as an iron butterfly fluttered in his chest, sending hot acid up his esophagus and into the back of his mouth.

 

“Please secure all loose items” the sweet, uninterested sounding voice said from above.

 

John swallowed hard against the fast rising sick trying to leap up from the bowls of his stomach and then took a step forward.

 

“Lower your shoulder harnesses down until you hear them click” the voice from above continued.

 

John looked past the row of bullet shaped cars in front of him and into the green glow coming from the control station just beyond the slick looking cars.

 

“Hey man, this is going to be great!” someone said excitedly from behind him in line.

 

“Please keep your hands and arms inside of the car at all times” the voice from above continued.

 

 

John thought that the voice coming from the person behind him in line sounded familiar, but their voice seemed to be distant and disconnected; as if it was floating out of the mouth of a long tunnel where it then fell apart and swiftly blew away, turning into a jumble of broken syllables as it went.

 

 “I repeat please keep your hands and arms inside of the car at all times.” the voice cautioned again.

 

John swallowed again; trying to chase away the hot burn still left inside of his throat and then turned his head slowly away from the emerald glow of the control room and toward the distant yet familiar voice behind him in line.

 

“Yea.” John said weakly to the familiar form. “Should be fun.”

 

 

“Three…two…one…”

 

 

Suddenly, a verring whizzing sound pierced John’s ears like a railroad spike being driven into his skull; making him wince in pain as his head snapped back to front and center to where the ear splitting sound had come from.

 

 As John’s eye tried to adjust to the scene in front of him; the row of connected cars just beyond the waiting gates shot away on an elevated track and disappeared into a void of darkness to his right, while the screams of what sounded like a thousand souls echoed through and then eventually above the staging platform.

 

John flinched and took a step back as Death seemed to reach inside of him with its cold and deathly hand, crushing his guts into a tight ball of twisted mush.

 

The sound of metal wheels rolling swiftly over metal tracks thundered above John; rattling the platform beneath his feet and shaking his own frame to the core as if he was merely a bag full of bones.

 

John closed his eyes and drew in a deep, quivery breath.

 

As John exhaled, a rush of warm air mixed with howling shrieks blasted down from above, blowing John’s hair from his brow, followed by the blood chilling cries of a thousand souls in terror mixed with the crunching hiss of brakes clamping against hard steel.

 

In John’s mind the images of bodies raining down from the heavens and onto the skeleton like frame of the tracks up above overtook his thoughts, making him shudder as goose flesh broke out all over his body.

 

John took another deep breath as he tried with all his will to push the thoughts of raining terror out of his mind and bring himself back to reality.

 

Sparks flickered and rained from off the tracks in the night sky above where John stood as he ran a cold clammy hand over his mouth noticing for the first time how dry his tongue felt in his mouth; something like a patch of sand paper grating the roof of his mouth.

 

“Here it comes” said the familiar stranger from behind John like a disembodied voice from far away.

 

John opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it with an audible click.

 

A moment later, the train of cars, filled to the brim with dazed and surprised looking passengers, lazily rolled into the station, shaking the platform on either side of its glistening bulking mass.

 

At the sight of the approaching train; the large iron butterfly in John’s chest doubled, then tripled its efforts, making a cold sweat break out on his brow and his upper lip.

 

The long row of cars came to a heavy rocking stop; shaking the staging platform under John once again as a pair

of gates violently swung open in front of him with a loud banging clatter of metal against metal.

 As the previous riders slowly began to unhook themselves from their seats and climb out of the carsin a daze, John’s breathing shortened and thinned to a wisping shallow wheeze.

 

 

“Next riders…please remain behind the red line until the next passengers have exited the cars and are completely clear of the platform.”

 

 

John looked down at the crimson line at his feet and took a tentative step forward bringing the tips of his shoes to its bloody edge.

 

John stared at the line, transfixed by its freshly painted glow when all of a sudden every muscles in his body locked up all at once, making him feel like a cow caught in the eye of a locomotives headlamp, unable to breathe or even move. Trapped in that space between fight or flight

 

 

“Next in line…”

 

 

 

 

Impressum

Texte: Aton Newcombe
Bildmaterialien: Alton Newcombe
Lektorat: K.A.N.
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 28.10.2012

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Widmung:
To the first coaster I ever rode, The Rebel Yell