Bernice

Theme parks are the best, the roller coasters rule, but I didn’t want to go into the House of Horrors. It looked dark and creepy and I knew it was full of dead things and madmen, like the pictures on my dad’s scary videos. That kind of stuff made my insides squirm and threaten to erupt buckets of puke, but Bernice had the tickets and me by the hand, and she was dragging me along and wouldn’t stop.

What was I supposed to do, sit down and cry? I’d look like a baby and Bernice would laugh. It was the first time she’d talked to me, so I didn’t want that. Instead, I let her lead me to that dirty, grey building with the gargoyle-covered, finger-like spires, which rose into the cloudless, midday sky like a giant, concrete hand waiting to grab us. My feet dragged, the ground felt like quicksand but Bernice kept me out by moving fast, getting us to the looming mansion safe and sound.

I said nothing when she handed the tickets to the bored-looking teenager wearing a ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ t-shirt who was manning the booth. I said nothing when he complained we were too young, but it was okay if we really weren’t scared. I said nothing when Bernice told him our parents said it was fine and pulled me through the thick sheets of plastic that hung like strips of flesh in the open door.

I could still feel Dad’s hand on my shoulder, nudging me on like he had towards Bernice. It was like I was being carried by that same momentum as I stepped forward into the darkness. And then there I was, in a haunted house in 'Pleasure Beach' in Blackpool, holding hands with a girl from Northern Ireland, and I couldn’t really believe this was me, because if there was one thing I hated more than monsters, it was girls, or at least that's what I thought.

Just a few minutes earlier I’d been eating a burger at a white, plastic picnic table on the veranda of the theme park family restaurant, sitting on a wobbly chair and slurping coke while acting out a battle with my Star Wars toys.

That’s when I spotted the girl from our hotel watching me from her seat a few tables away. It made me splutter coke all over my ‘Goonies’ t-shirt because I hadn’t expected to see anyone I knew here, so I hadn’t been holding back on the sound effects. I tried not to go red as I looked away, sliding Vader and Luke into my lap, but I was glowing with embarrassment, so I failed.

Like me, she was eating lunch with her family at one of the flimsy tables crammed into the packed restaurant courtyard. Like me, she was also trying to entertain herself while her parents babbled on about nothing, taking forever to finish eating and wasting precious, attraction-riding time. Except she was doing it in the less embarrassing way of juggling tennis balls.

I knew her name was Bernice because that’s what her sisters called her, in the hotel lounge every evening, where I read Spiderman comics and she juggled. She made those balls go so fast it was hard not to sneak a glance. She never even dropped one, and mostly she wasn’t even paying attention to what she was doing. I tried not to care. I tried not to think she was cool, with her straw-coloured hair tied up in pigtails and those freckles on her nose that were kind of cute. But she kept catching me watching, which was annoying. It made her stupid, older sisters giggle, whisper in her ear and laugh. I knew they were talking about me. It made my cheeks tingle and burn so I had to get up and leave the room. I always looked back as I did. And she was always staring after me.

And now she’d seen me playing with my Star Wars toys and for some reason I felt really dumb. I didn’t want to look at her again, with my red face and coke-stained shirt, but my head wouldn't stop and when it turned, I got a horrible surprise.

Bernice wasn’t at her table anymore.

She was standing right there beside mine, a tennis ball clutched in each hand.

“Hey, my mam gave me tickets for a ride, are ya comin’?”

“What?”

“Are ya comin’ on a ride with me, I’m bored.”

“Go on, Kev,” my dad said, nudging me out of my seat and pushing me towards her. Luke and Vader fell from my knees and hit the flagstones. “You kids go ride the chair-o-planes. We’ll be finished when you get back and we’ll do another rollercoaster.”

I didn't have time to retrieve my toys, and I didn't want to be seen doing it anyway. They were my favourite ones and I didn't want to lose them, but suddenly Bernice's eyes and smile seemed more important. She stuffed her tennis balls into the pockets of her jacket, then grabbed me by the hand and we were off, weaving our way through the tables and crowds out of the restaurant, her sisters staring after us, sticking their tongues out and making kissy noises with their lips.

And that was that. Except Bernice didn’t want to go on the chair-o-planes and now I was in what looked like the dirtiest of dungeons, with plastic skeletons jiggling on the walls, dim, red bulbs barely illuminating the hall, and the sound of recorded screams filling the air.

My heart pounded like it was trying to break free, my breath catching with each shadow that stretched from the walls. The darkness seemed to tug at my limbs, squeezing tighter with every screech. I didn’t like the plastic vampire sucking on the neck of a mannequin, I didn’t like the wax werewolf with its snout stuck in the entrails of a scarecrow, I didn’t like the life-size, glowering Jack the Ripper, blocking our path with his blood-stained knife.

It wasn’t just that. The whole place stank of mothballs and mould, a damp smell that reminded me of Gran’s house when we’d gone to clear it out after she died. That same scent of damp–or death, I wasn’t sure which–had stuck with me after just an hour in her house a year before and it was back now, stronger than ever. And the air didn’t just smell bad. It felt bad, like a horrible weight pressing down on me, squeezing the oxygen from my lungs. 

Like Vader using the Force to crush a throat.

I hated it. 

Every bit.

But Bernice loved it all.

She squealed in delight at every discovery, pulling me through the halls at breakneck speed, barely pausing at each horrific sight before barrelling us on to the next one. Which was good, in a way, as I didn’t want to be there longer than necessary. But bad in another way, because I’d barely recovered from one scare before another leapt out. Frankenstein’s monster staring wide-eyed on a table. Blood-chilling. A trio of witches at a smoking cauldron full of bones. Nerve-wracking. A pack of rabid dogs with drooling teeth. Terrifying.

And let’s not talk about the clown…

I tried not to show I was afraid. I mimicked her shoulders bobbing and her arms swinging when she laughed and joked around, and agreed the scary things were really cool. When she playfully pushed me towards the Creature from the Black Lagoon, I made sure my intended yelp came out a giggle. When she said grabbed my hand and told me she was scared of Norman Bates, I bravely tightened my grip and said it was fine.

I was glad it was dark, because that meant she couldn’t see the expressions on my face, or how my eyes were squinting most of the time. I was gladder still when we rounded a final corner and saw the word EXIT. We were almost out. It had seemed like an age but was probably only five minutes. Somehow I’d made it without peeing my pants and she had no reason to think I was a baby. With luck, she might even have forgotten Star Wars.

And that’s when it all went wrong.

“My ball!” she gasped, releasing my hand to search in both her pockets. “I lost one of my balls!”

“Oh no,” I replied, looking at the floor, hoping I’d find it. “When did you lose it?”

“I don’t know!” Bernice snapped, knocking me against the rickety wall as she pushed past. “That’s a stupid question! If I knew that it wouldn’t be lost. I’m going to find it.”

She didn’t wait for me to answer. Didn’t wait at all, just ran back into the corridor we’d come out of and disappeared.

“Bernice!” I shouted, and my face tingled when I said her name aloud. “Wait!”

She didn’t. I stared at the corner she’d turned, hoping to hear her call back, listening for a trace of her, even her footsteps, but the wails from the speakers seemed to be getting louder and louder.

Seemed to be laughing at me now.

I turned the other way and looked at the exit ahead, green letters glowing in the darkness, which seemed even darker now I was alone. For a second I thought about running, getting out of there and waiting outside. For a second. Maybe two. But deep down I knew I couldn’t do that. I didn’t want her to think I was a wimp. Being brave was somehow important now, but it wasn’t the only reason I decided to follow her.

I wanted to make sure she was okay.

Dad would have been angry if I didn’t. 

If I’d left her alone and something happened. 

I’d heard him say to Mum how he hated himself for not visiting Gran more often. For not making sure she was okay.

Bernice wasn’t my friend. But she could be. 

And friends wouldn’t leave each other alone. Not in a place like this, even if the threat was all fake.

Especially because the threat was all fake.

So back around the corner I went, straight into the arms of the skinned-alive man, who reached for me from an alcove in the wall. I didn’t make eye contact with his lifeless wax eyes because he looked bloody and hideous and I hated him. I moved on, walking faster, retracing my steps through the corridors, peering into the darkness at the shadowy figures that lurked there, trying not to see them if they weren’t her.

My heart pounded faster, my feet moved quicker, the screams (laughs?) seemed to grow louder the further I went. I started to imagine that some of those screams might be hers, that some creature made of wax had somehow grabbed her, and then I was running, starting to panic, taking a corner too fast, yelping when I ran into monsters.

“Watch it!” one of them with stringy hair shouted, putting an arm out to stop me. “You shouldn’t be here, you little dweeb, where’s your mother?”

It didn’t take me long to realise they were just a couple of teenagers, a boy and a girl, both with long hair, holding hands. Still I ducked under the outstretched arm and ran past them. I don’t know why. I should have asked for help, or even asked if they’d seen her.

But they were teenagers. They wouldn’t have cared.

Coming around the next corner, I saw two things that stopped me in my tracks.

The first was the naked, old man in the bathtub, with his black eyes and bath cap, stubbly beard and thin, bony arm in the air, holding a long-handled scrubber. This one wasn’t a monster, not any I’d ever heard of, but somehow he scared me the most. I hadn’t been able to look at him the first time around, had kept my eyes glued to the floor while Bernice giggled and peered into the bath. This time, I had to look, because the second thing I noticed was the tennis ball he was holding in his outstretched hand.

“Bernice?” I hissed, gulping as I stepped towards the bathtub. “Are you there?”

Screams. Screeches. Shrieks and squawks from above.

I moved closer, keeping my eyes on the tennis ball and not on the face of the man. He wasn’t real. I knew that. He was made of wax. He couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t move. So why was the ball in his hand? 

And why was Bernice in the bath?

It took me a second to understand what I was seeing. Bernice, lying face down on the smooth surface of wax that was meant to be water, from which the old man was rising up, her short auburn hair fanned out around her head, skirt hitched up around her knees.

“Bernice?” I whispered again, doing everything I could not to cry. “Are you okay?”

My legs bumped against the rim of the ceramic bathtub. I lifted one arm to reach out. My eyes flicked to the face of the waxwork, which was far too close, it's horrible blank gaze boring into me.

The red bulb above the bathtub flickered.

My fingers touched the top of Bernice’s head.

Something, arms, grabbed me from behind and something, voices, screamed in my ears on both sides. 

I screamed, staggered back, stumbled and fell to the floor. The flickering light bulb revealed two gangly forms, twisted shapes in the darkness, closing in around me, reached out their arms, making strange slurping sounds that sounded like kisses. 

“Gotcha!” laughed one, and I knew straight away who it was.

“Haha you screamed like a little girl!”

“Oh no, did ya piss your pants? Ew!!”

“Are you really scared, do you want yer mommy?”

Bernice rose up in the bathtub, bumping the bulb and making it swing as her sisters danced around me, clutching their sides in laughter. The grin on her lips disappeared when she noticed the look on my face in the swinging light.

“That was brilliant!” laughed one of the girls, high fiving the other above me. “Come on, Ber, mam and dad are waitin’!”

And just like that they were gone, racing away from the bathtub and the wax man and me on the floor and Bernice. 

And that's why I always avoided girls.

I pushed myself up while Bernice climbed out of the tub and took back her ball. She had her back to me, and I had my eyes on the floor. She started to walk away and I thought, good, go, leave me alone, with your stupid straw hair and ugly freckles, but then she stopped in her tracks and looked back.

“Sorry,” she said, and I looked into a pair of darting eyes. “It was my sisters’ idea. Kind of stupid.”

“Kind of.”

“I thought it would be funny. A good prank. But it wasn’t.”

She came closer.

“It was nice ya came after me. I wasn’t sure ya would.”

I blushed, looked at my feet.

I just wanted her to go. The screams from the speakers were better company. The lifeless creations populating the labyrinth were less likely to hurt me than…

“Are ya comin’?”

She lifted her arm and held out her hand and I blushed even more and looked up.

“We came in together, you’re not gonna let me walk out on my own, are ya? One of the monsters might get me.”

She smiled. A small smile, apologetic. She was being friendly for real and I liked it. I mirrored her smile and felt a flutter in my chest, something strange that made a lump catch in my throat. I had to swallow hard to get rid of it.

“At least you have those tennis balls to throw if it does.”

“Yeah! They make great weapons. Not as good as light sabers but...here.”

She handed the one she was holding to me and took the other one out of her pocket. I thought of Luke and Vader on the ground back at the restaurant and wondered if they’d still be there when I got back. Mum and Dad definitely wouldn’t have seen them. Any other time, the fear of losing them would have stabbed arrows of dread into my heart and had me racing back in a panic, but I didn’t seem too bothered by it now.

When Bernice offered her hand again, I took it, and then we were walking, back the way we’d come, through the monsters and the noise towards the exit.

The wailing House of Horrors with its hallways full of scares closed in around us, but as we walked hand in hand through the corridors, past eerie figures and through screams that now seemed to be quieter, I wasn’t really afraid anymore. With Bernice by my side, it was like we were off on an adventure, like the Goonies in their subterranean caves.

And even if our caves did house monsters, I realised they weren’t so scary.

And neither were girls.