“We will all get you for this, Jim!” Quinn bellows. She rips her hand from mine and starts swiping water from her face.
I pull off my shirt and hand it to her, but she waves me off.
“What’s the point? You’re as soaked as I am!”
Looking down at the dripping shirt in my hand, I realize she’s right. I start laughing. I cannae help it. Seems doing the chivalrous thing is beyond my ken, even when I’m trying my damndest.
The worry eases when she starts laughing too. She swipes the shirt from my hand and wrings it out, then opens it and presses it to her face. She holds it there, doing gentle motions with her fingers to smooth away the makeup runoff.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to scrub?” I ask. “Doesn’t seem very effective to just drape a wet cloth on your face and hope for the best.”
“Bad for the skin,” she mumbles into the shirt. “Pulling and tugging like that will give you wrinkles.”
“Oh no, wouldn’t want any of those,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
When she’s satisfied, she shoves the shirt back into my hands and starts walking again. Despite the low light, I can see that she got the job done, even if her methods make no sense.
My arms want to recoil inside my body as I shove them into the icy shirt and follow her. It’s somehow colder now.
“Aven, what is that?”
I look up. Quinn’s outstretched finger points to a tiny boat in a channel of water beside the loading platform. A few identical boats line up behind it, each with a faceless, robed Charon figure perched at the back.
“That would be the ferryman, come to take us to our afterlife,” I say.
Quinn shakes her head, and her soggy golden ponytail flops against her nape. “No, not the boat.That! In his hand.”
I look again and realize she isn’t pointing at the boats. She’s pointing to the ride attendant standing beside the loading dock. In his hand, he holds a shiny metal garrote.
“That’s what we’ll have to use to kill her.” I nod toward the Cattle in the front of the boat. She’s a gray-haired elderly woman, so it shouldn’t be too difficult. “It’s a garrote, used for strangulation. You slide the wire around her throat and use the handles to provide pressure. Would you prefer I do it so that we can make it quick?”
Quinn scoffs and rushes forward to snatch the garrote from the attendant’s hand. “Do you think I’m not strong enough? Because I’m a girl?”
Before I can answer, she drops into the seat, drapes the garrote over the woman’s neck, and starts pulling. The woman’s feet kick out, and her eyes go wide. Her mouth opens in a scream, but Quinn is putting her all into the metal wire, and no sound escapes.
“I’ll kill . . . this animal-abusing cunt . . . before . . . the ride . . .” Quinn grunts and struggles as the woman flails against death. “Bitch, sit still!”
Quinn gives the handles a sharp tug, and the wire slices through skin as the woman turns her head sharply to the left. Blood spurts from a severed artery and soaks Quinn’s legs.
“Oh, fucking gross,” she says as she tries to scoot away.
The ride attendant holds up a finger. “Um, one final rule. If the Cattle dies before the ride starts, you’re disqualified.”
“Shit,” I say as I hurry to drop into the seat behind Quinn. She didn’t need me after all, but it’s too late to back out now.
And as the woman keeps bleeding all over the place, it’s almost too late for anything. It’s more of a nick than a full severance of the artery, but it’s enough to keep the blood pulsing out in violent jets. I motion for the attendant to get us rolling before she meets the actual Angel of Death. It’s not until the boat dips forward and we drift into a black tunnel that I remember what’s to come.
“Oh, wow,” Quinn breathes as the woman gurgles in front of her. “Look at that.”
The tiny boat bobs into a scene straight from a movie set. An animatronic Grim Reaper stands on the shore, beckoning us forward with a skeletal finger. Naked branches stretch toward the ceiling from the trees surrounding the water. We have no choice but to move closer as the boat carries us downriver.
“Who goes there?” a deep voice bellows from overhead, and despite the audio treatments the clip received, I can still tell it’s Jim’s voice. “Who dares venture down the River Styx?”
The boat comes to a stop in front of the massive animatronic, and a speaker hidden within Charon responds. “I bring more souls for the underworld.”
Was that...King’svoice? How did Jim get that priggish bastard to run lines? He’s the only bloke I consider more standoffish than myself.
The animatronics continue their bit, but I can’t focus on what they’re saying. Not with the way Quinn keeps wiggling around in front of me and bumping against my blasted cods.
