No. He had a choice, and he was going to make the right one for once. It was as if he suddenly remembered that he was not a frightened little boy. He was practically someone’s father, for crying out loud. And this pathetic display would just not do.
He had a vision of crossing the road, a tiny person holding his hand and trusting him implicitly to lead the way safely. Trusthimwith their life, the grown adult male child currently crying about a few raspberries on his palm.
What if his son or daughter inherited Wren’s unfortunate love of all things gruesome and horrific? What if they were holding his hand right now, clinging to him with their eyes closed with full faith that he would guide them out safely? He could not be curled up in a shivering little ball on the floor. He had to be stronger than that.
Arthur found the strength to climb to his feet. The ballerina hissed in his face, threatening him with her fangs again. But he felt very much like Neo when he was finally able to read the source code of the Matrix. It didn’t scare him anymore. He could see the flaking makeup on the edges of the girl’s face, the little gap between the prosthetic fangs and her regular teeth. He could hear a hint of that townie twang in her growled threats. The illusion was crumbling before his eyes.
“No,” he said simply.
She stopped. Taken aback at his subtle breaking of the fourth wall, his shattering of the illusion. “No?”
“Just no.” He dusted himself off and walked calmly past the bewildered ballerina, staggered his way through the rotating vortex tunnel of doom, gently stiff-armed a demented granny holding a butcher knife, and made his way to the door clearly markedExit.
But. There was one final trial, and it was a doozy.Someone had strung a gob of spiderwebbing across the hallway leading to the door and dotted it with fake rubber spiders. Arthur examined it and realized there was no way under or around, by design. He’d have to walk through. And if there was anything he hated more than clowns and mimes, it was spiders. Their webs, in particular. The unsettling tickle of feeling it on your body and not being able to see it, the frantic pulling and swiping and swatting of trying to get it off before the spider at the end of it grabbed hold of you and sank its fangs in, or laid its eggs in your ear canal. The humiliation of knowing you looked like an absolute loon to anyone watching you struggle and flail.
It was why he often walked with his arms stretched out in front of him, swirling them in a circle, or batted at the air with a stick when strolling in nature. It was why he only took the well-traveled paths and never strayed where someone hadn’t gone before him to clear out all the spiders.
It was all fake, but his heart pounded the same, anticipating the feeling: a caught fly waiting for the slow, painful end to come.
He took a deep breath. Speed would be his best friend. One quick go, no stopping or looking back, and he would be free.
One…Ew, it really was gross, shiny…Was the web somehow wet? Never mind.Two…Was there any chance that it was a real spiderweb, or that real spiders had perhaps found the fake webbing really enticing and taken up residence? Possible, but not likely.Three…It would be wise to take a few more seconds to analyze the situation, count to five instead.
But another group was coming, and Arthur couldn’t risk the humiliation, so he dropped into a sprinting stance and lunged.
When he finally stepped out into the dewy evening air, it felt cool; well, cooler than it had been inside the poorly ventilated attraction. And whether he was cool, hot, sweaty, or covered in strands of stretched cotton didn’t really matter. He was alive, in one piece, and he hadn’t caved in to his fear. That was what really mattered.
Wren was waiting for him at the exit when he got out.
“So, how was—” He didn’t let her finish before pulling her toward him, running the fingers of one hand up the back of her neck and firmly into her hair, and kissing her deeply. It was the adrenaline, he knew. His skin felt tingly and sensitive to every touch, and he felt this overwhelming joy to see Wren again, to be here with her in this moment, and at the fact that she was his. He just had to let her know.
“Whoa,” was all she could say when he finally let her go.
“Sorry.”
“It was a goodwhoa.”
“Oh.” He smiled. “Cool.”
“I heard a little girl screaming in there and worried it might be you,” she said. “I know you don’t handle it well when teens are mean to you.”
He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been worried about that, about being designated one of the “weak ones” and getting extra, unwanted attention from the performers. Or worse, having some brutish farm boy make an example out of him to score points with Wren. He worried about falling and breaking a limb, passing out, and getting maimed by a prop gone wrong and lying there in a pool of his own blood, incoming groups stepping over him thinking he was part of the scenery.
He’d worried about all of that, and he went anyway. And better yet, he had actually made it out.
“It wasn’t as scary as I thought,” he said. “I did get a little scraped up, though.”
He’d forgotten about his hands until now. They still stung and were probably bleeding profusely at this point. He held them up to the beams coming from a nearby floodlight, bracing himself for the worst. But there was no blood. Barely even a scratch. Just dust. Dust from the floor. In the black light, it had looked like a massacre. Turned out it was nothing at all. He couldn’t help but laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Wren said.
“Me,” he said. That was the only way he could explain it.
“OK.” She side-eyed him. “Well, meanwhile, I’ve been holding in the world’s largest pee because I didn’t want to miss you.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll wait for you by the gallows.”
Wren hurried off toward the port-a-potties and Arthur stood there, still basking. The adrenaline was wearing off, but even with its edge taken off, he felt amazing. Like he could do anything.
