The Haunted Ride

September 12, 2023

Historical Fiction

Horror

Middle School

The Haunted Ride

By Christine Van Zandt

1,262 words

1976

Benjamin Clyde Miller did not believe in ghosts. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about California, but, for the first time that Ben could remember, he had a room of his own, in a home that wasn’t rolling down the highway. He’d crisscrossed the US with his dad who worked at one carnival or another, until finding this job operating the legendary Laff in the Dark.

“Are you ready to meet our ghost tomorrow?” Dad asked, sprawled across their new thrift-store couch.

“Why would a ghost haunt a haunted house?” Ben laughed. “Who would even notice?”

“The rumor’s scared people off. No one wanted this job,” Dad said. “It’s about time we settled down and got you into a real school.”

Ben groaned. “Scoot over, our favorite show’s about to start.” It was great having an apartment and a color TV of their own. Before today, they’d lived in their van, with a weekly motel night to take showers and watch The Six Million Dollar Man. Since Ben and his dad were good with machines, they liked this show about a man rebuilt with mechanical parts.

* * *

Until middle school began, Ben would go to work with his dad. At amusement parks and carnivals, no one cared when workers brought their kids. It wasn’t legal, but keeping in the shadows would be easy at a haunted-house ride.

Stretching along a beach and onto a pier over the ocean, the Pike Amusement Park looked like something you’d see on a postcard,. Ben was used to carnies and fortune tellers, but the Pike had sailors, surfers, and tourists taking side trips from nearby Disneyland or Hollywood.

To learn the Laff, they met up with the Pike’s manager, Marty.

Running the Laff sounded so much easier than traveling with carnivals reassembling rides at every stop. Here, as long as the passengers were told to “keep their hands inside the cars” and the Laff remained in good working condition, Dad could be employed year-round and they’d finally have a home.

They walked through the Laff with Marty to see the ghouls and hear their sounds. Around the first bend, darkness descended along and the familiar smell of old grease drifted up from the tracks. Spotlights revealed colorful, life-size clowns laughing madly and jack-in-the-boxes popping open.

In the second room, witches on brooms cackled, wands ready to cast spells. Cats screeched.

Marty paused before entering the last room. “This one’s haunted.”

“Really?” Ben asked.

“Sure, kid,” Marty replied, giving Ben’s dad a wink. “Every kid who comes to the Pike wants to ride the Laff. Ghosts are good for business.”

Ben’s dad got the drift. “I’ll tell people to beware! Let’s see what the fuss is about.”

In the third room, neon-painted ghouls glowed under special lights. A tattered blue vampire rose from his coffin, greenish gargoyles crouched menacingly above, and, in the corner, a skinny, faded-orange mummy hung from a rope around its neck.

“Sure has seen better days,” Marty said and hurried out the exit.

* * *

When Ben wasn’t wandering the Pike or walking on the beach, he hung out in the Laff. To prove he wasn’t afraid of the third room, he hid behind the coffin, adding his own moans to the room’s prerecorded sound effects or clicking his flashlight on and off. Sometimes he sat across from the gargoyles in the rafters, waiting for someone to glance his way. But people were too busy having fun.

After the Laff closed, Ben investigated the mummy’s corner—the only place he couldn’t conceal himself while the ride ran. As soon as he neared, he realized he’d made a mistake. It felt as if he’d walked into an icy swamp. Backing away, Ben accidentally bumped the mummy. The mummy creaked loudly then began swinging with ever-increasing force.

“Ben, come quick!” Dad called from another room.

Ben turned and ran, believing Dad knew what was going on. Instead, Dad said, “They’re filming an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man at the Pike next week and one scene will be in the Laff!”

Ben should have been thrilled, but the strange experience lingered. Dad would say there was a logical explanation. The mummy must be automated and a busted vent probably allows cold air in. That had to be it.

Dad high-fived Ben. “Let’s make this place shine!”

* * *

Cleaning began. Dad detailed each car and the building front; Ben tackled the first two rooms. Maybe he could skip the third—but, it was in the worst shape and they had to make a good impression.

Ghosts aren’t real, he told himself and boldly entered the third room. But when his flashlight dimmed, Ben began to sweat.

Though the ghouls were turned off, the mummy once again swung creakily from side to side, and what seemed to be a smile stretched the bandages on its shrunken face.

When a thick chill surrounded him, Ben decided this room could stay dusty and dirty. The TV people would never notice.

* * *

The TV people noticed. When their crew went in with a vacuum and dust rags, Dad paced nervously.

The cleaning was cast aside as soon as someone shouted something about a dead body and called 911. The crowd that had formed to watch Hollywood in action pushed in closer. Ben was shoved around and lost track of Dad.

Word spread from person to person. “The mummy’s real!”

What?! How could that be?

Apparently a crew member had moved the mummy and its arm fell off revealing a human bone covered by leathery skin!

It was the paramedics who carefully carried the mummy out, yelling for the crowd to make way, but, instead, people pressed forward to get a look.

When the withered old body neared, Ben dropped to the floor and scrambled between people’s legs to get away.

* * *

The police determined the mummy was Elmer McCurdy, a train robber who was killed in a gunfight so long ago that, when he was sold to the Pike, no one remembered he was real. Elmer had been on the road even longer than Ben and was finally going home to Oklahoma to be buried.

The Laff became even more popular. Marty left the noose up so riders could see where the dead body had been. With the mummy gone, Ben began to doubt all the strangeness. Dad would have noticed. However, one night after closing when Ben was picking up trash, Elmer’s empty rope began swaying. Beneath, lay a shriveled finger, pointing right at Ben.

It must have broken off during all that craziness. Why hadn’t anyone seen it sooner? Ben wondered if he should say something, but then this would never end. Ben knew exactly what to do. With a quick flick, he swept the finger into his dustpan, bagged it with the day’s trash, and tossed it in a faraway dumpster. Out of all the strange places he’d grown up in, California was the weirdest. But, it was over. All of Elmer was gone from the Laff, Ben felt sure of it.

* * *

That night, as Ben contentedly drifted off to sleep, a slight sound caught his attention. Scritch . . . scritch. Kind of like a slow-moving rat. Scritch . . . scritch. The sound scratched and rested, scratched and rested, across the wood floor toward Ben’s bed.

Ben hid under the covers. He would not scream. He would not call for Dad.

Benjamin Clyde Miller did not believe in ghosts. But, apparently, ghosts didn’t care.

THE END

AUTHOR’S NOTE: I was born and raised in California and have always loved amusement parks. I first learned about the Laff at another beachfront amusement park, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. When I met my husband (who’s from LA), I asked him about the Pike. He’d gone there on family outings and the haunted Laff was a big draw. In 1976, McCurdy’s body was discovered. Once removed, the haunted occurrences stopped. In 1979, the amusement park was demolished but the story of the Laff’s legendary past remains.

REFERENCES

“Elmer McCurdy: Traveling Corpse.” Library of Congress. Heather Thomas. July 24, 2018. https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2018/07/elmer-mccurdy-traveling-corpse/

“The Sideshow Corpse Hidden in a Fun House,” Ripley’s Believe It or Not! March 24, 2020. https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/elmer-mccurdy/

“How a Real Corpse Ended Up in a California Fun Park Spookhouse.” Atlas Obscura. Ella Morton,. April 11, 2014. http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/04/11/the_corpse_of_elmer_mccurdy_and_how_it_ended_up_in_a_long_beach_fun_park.html