I used to hear them talking when they thought I was asleep.
“Is it good for her, Gerald? Is it good for a little girl to spend so much time where everything is dark and creepy?”
“She's not a little girl anymore, and it's good for her chances of getting a paycheck someday. There are no jobs, Martha. If she gets work at that park, she'll stay in this town. Our town! You know, where we grew up and fell in love and got married, where we know all our neighbors, where we want to grow old and die?!”
“We're barely making ends meet! If you just went down to the community college, they say they'd give you that retraining for almost nothing. You could get certified to do something, and then you could get a job somewhere else. This place is dying. We could go somewhere there's life. You know, young couples in the neighborhood, people moving in instead of out. How many more years do you think your work'll last? Two? Five? One of our sons got into college, and the other one is a punk musician. My beautiful boy's hair is dyed green and turned into two foot spikes! Two foot spikes, Gerald! That's what living here has done.
“Your beautiful boy just got a record advance he could buy a car with, Martha. He's making a good living, and he loves to play. I've never understood it, but music means the world to him. He got out of here. He played clubs in Chicago, and then it was New York. Now it's an album. You really think our son, the big punk rock guy, is every coming back here except to visit us at Christmas? And his big brother called while you were at the store. He ain't coming back, either. Our boy's going to law school. Law school! He and his brother. They're both gonna be rich, important men. Maybe one'll be a rock star or do a big movie soundtrack. The other, maybe he'll be a great lawyer or a politician or a judge. Besides, that park suits her. Mary Isabelle took to it like Joey-, sorry, Aziziel, the lead singer of Razorwolf Dead, took to that electric guitar.”
“We bought him that, didn't we.”
“Yeah, Martha, that year for Christmas. We had to scrimp and save half the year for it, but he still plays that guitar every night. He's never forgotten it. His tool, his toy, his ticket out of here, that scary-looking thing he calls the Marshfire Rose.”
“That is an awful-looking thing, isn't it, but the smile on his face when he saw that monster-”
“Is a lot like the way Mary Isabelle looks on her way to the park.”
“Are you sure we aren't doing a disservice to her. Sometimes, I hear rumors-”
“Of course you do. It's a “haunted” fun park that's been around since 1889. The owner probably starts half of them to drum up buisnes.”
“Gerald, you moved to this town as a young man. I was here as a child, and, well, strange things happen there. There's an edge here, a borderline, two sides to a coin. Some of these murders lately-”
“A lot of it's the poverty and drinking. Crime's got nothing to do with that park.”
“An ax murderer and a cyanide killer within weeks of each other? Those things you sometimes see out of the corner of your eye? All the maulings?
“Bears.”
“The survivors say wolves, and then we don't see them around anymore. The attacks on the diner by things that look a whole hell of a lot like rotting corpses? Crazy things happen in this town, crazier things around that park.
“Even if they do, Mary's tougher than the boys ever were. Martha, she's a fighter. This is what she does. I doubt we could stop her. Besides,” I found myself drifting off, “he told us he intends for her-” I fell asleep.