Sorry Pal, Disneyworld was Half a Mile Back
Sorry Pal, Disneyworld was Half a Mile Back
Part I
Veritas!—Yes, you had to say it like that to illustrate the exclamation mark—was a very peculiar theme park. That mostly had to do with the titular theming. It wasn’t fairy tales, or space adventures, or popular movies owned by the theme park proprietors. It was, of all things, heavily inspired by the Italian theatrical tradition known as Commedia dell’arte. Weirdly specific, but they made it work, especially with all the mascots themed after common stock characters. In particular, the Inamorati acted as the main selling point. They were often drawn in a vaguely rubberhose style on all the promotional material, rubbing noses and generally doing cute, young couple in love sorts of things. It was almost sickly sweet, but it put butts on roller coasters.
One would think it was owned by some sort of eccentric with cash to burn. Yet, it almost seemed as if the park had a mind of its own. It wasn’t a reality, nobody was really sure what it was exactly, only that it would show up in a random reality for a week and then entirely disappear.
Hence why Kei and Jack were told to drop everything for a Tea Part Family Vacation as soon as Bacchae got word it had appeared again. A “Once in a lifetime opportunity,” he called it.
Neither Kei nor Jack were particularly enthused about the prospect, but both had long since learned at this point that Bacchae’s flights of fancy were simply not to be denied.
So, bags were packed—specifically a backpack for Kei, an old army bag for Jack, and two suitcases for Bacchae. The second one was apparently empty, but he vowed that it certainly wouldn’t be by the time he was done. To his credit, Bacchae wheeled them merrily along through the door Kei made for them with nary a complaint. She was sure he would have if he’d actually had to bring them through any kind of conventional transport.
The only thing that could have possibly dampened his mood was the particular reality Veritas! found itself in. Dryden was perpetually damp and overcast, and all of the park guests were pale and just as overcast. But clearly, Bacchae was not going to let anything ruin his little adventure.
Seeing as Veritas! was a whole-ass resort, there were several on-site hotels to choose from, each one themed after a city in Italy. The Rome-themed one looked interesting, with a lot of art and big marble columns, but Jack quickly vetoed it. “Too many Catholics. Makes me itchy.” He was much more cool with the Venice one, but Kei was convinced they were secretly plotting to dump her into the canal. And maybe they were, but she was still a buzzkill.
Ultimately, they decided on Sicily. Jack was quick to point out that Sicily is an island and not a city, but of course it was mildly mafia-themed so his complaint was quickly dismissed.
“So do you think that’s real?” Kei asked, pointing up at the tommy gun hanging up prominently behind the front desk.
“If this was any old amusement part, I’d say no,” Jack muttered. “This one? Can’t be sure, eh?”
“We are not concocting a harebrained scheme to find out,” Kei said unprompted, but even though he hadn’t even said anything, Bacchae still looked disappointed.
All of their suites were currently booked up, so the three had to make due with two ordinary hotel rooms, though Bacchae made sure that his and Kei’s only had one bed. He even had to pay an extra twenty bucks for it. Sicily seemed to be one of the more popular hotels, which made sense given its near slavish dedication to the gimmick. They probably could have gotten more luxurious accommodations at Milan, but the boys were too enraptured by the idea of finding the code for the speakeasy in the basement to care much, and ultimately, having too much space made Kei jumpy anyway.
The rooms were done up like old city apartments, complete with exposed brick walls and fake radiator, pair of dangling handcuffs included, though Bacchae was disappointed to learn you couldn’t actually click them shut. Actual Sicily didn’t have architecture like this, but if they wanted historical accuracy, they would have gone to an actual Sicily instead of a hotel that was supposed to resemble it.
Bacchae allowed Kei and Jack about two minutes to settle in before he started getting antsy. “If we don’t go soon the lines are gonna get loooong.”
Finally, he managed to drag them out. There was a circular sort of river-thing that connected all the hotels to the park proper, and finally, one riverboat ride later saw them at the entryway to the Veritas! Main Stage Park.
The entrance was all decked out to look like a stage. Ornate carvings lined the wood of the ticket booths, and what looked like real velvet curtains hung over the entryway. It was surprisingly low security. There was someone checking tickets, of course, but other than that they were able to just stroll right through. The employee who confirmed their legitimacy was surprisingly pleasant, but Kei shivered as she saw very little behind the eyes. There were a lot of jobs she never wanted, and amusement park worker was pretty high on that list.
Bacchae was already rearing to find the biggest roller coaster he could, but Jack shook his head. “You’ll find it much faster if we grab a map, mate.”
“Usually there’s an info kiosk by the front of these places, right?” Kei glanced around. “But I don’t see one.”
“Why don’t we ask her?” Bacchae pointed, and over on a raised platform stood a woman in a rather smart turquoise tailcoat and what almost resembled a train conductor’s hat on her head. She was gesturing with what was probably a baton off into a direction that led deeper into the park, as a few guests nodded along to her instructions.
After a minute, they waltzed off in the given direction, and the woman turned to them. For a split second, she looked taken aback, but recovered very quickly. “Well, well. It looks like we have some very important guests here on our stage today. I am Condutore, the head of our players. How may I be of assistance, Lord of Discord?”
“Well you can stop all that, for one. I’m on vacation, for fuck’s sake,” he sighed.
Condutore straightened immediately.
“For two, what’s your most piss-inducing coaster?”
She cocked her head to the side. “That adjective is a rather loose one,” she smiled, just a bit mechanically. “If you mean terrifying, Il Dottore’s Asylum is what you seek. For if you traverse its halls you may find yourself a patient before long.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Bacchae scoffed under his breath.
Condutore didn’t appear to hear him. “If you mean exciting, the Inamorati’s Tunnel of Love will be sure to have you screaming until the end.”
The three looked at each other. “A Tunnel of Love?” Kei finally asked. “Aren’t those usually pretty chill boat rides?”
“But ours is a quest for love most fraught, filled with incredible highs and the lowest of lows!” When this didn’t seem to clear up their confusion, she sighed. “It’s a metal coaster that goes upside down.”
“Fuck yeah!” Bacchae fist-pumped. “How do we get there?”
She began to explain, gesturing with her baton, but just then Kei saw something odd out of the corner of her eye. A man was ambling towards them, but he was wearing the most outlandish clothes she had ever seen. He almost resembled a court jester, with diamond patterns all down his front. His walk was exaggerated, forcefully jaunty, and as soon as Kei met his gaze he did a double-take and dramatically tipped his hat. His mannerisms had to be that large, for it was impossible to see his facial expression behind his mask.
As soon as Condutore glanced over Bacchae’s shoulder at the unfolding scene, the boys followed her gaze. Kei expected he’d get a kick out of the weirdo, but instead Bacchae narrowed his eyes. “Who’s this clown?”
“That’s Arlecchino, one of our players,” Condutore explained. “He is quite popular with our female guests, so he strolls around the park quite a bit.”
Perfectly on cue, he grabbed Kei’s hand and bent down to kiss it. Oddly enough, Kei could see why. There was something striking about his eyes behind that mask, the way they never left hers.
Meanwhile, Bacchae looked like he wanted to find something to hit him with.
“He can’t stick around,” Condutore turned to Arlecchino pointedly, and he bowed deeply to Kei before trotting off, “but should you like to see him again, he is often around his House of Mirrors.”
For some reason, Bacchae looked really irritated about something. Kei wondered if she couldn’t sneak away at some point and take advantage of the offer. That was probably why he was irritated.
A line of guests was beginning to form now, however, so Condutore finished giving her directions and sent them on their way with a mechanical wave.
Of course they got distracted several times on their way to the roller coaster, first by a drop tower, and then by a log flume—which made Jack smell like a wet dog for the next hour—and then by a caricature stand; Kei laughed out loud when she saw that the artist had simply drawn Bacchae as an actual goat.
Finally, they spotted the coaster in the distance, and it did not disappoint. The initial drop was huge, and very vertical, made more dramatic by the fact that the “tunnel” part of its name came from the trip underground it took to make that drop even longer.
Bacchae insisted on riding it about three times, and even Jack was getting sick by the end. He crawled off briefly while Kei and Bacchae were arguing over the map to get some air.
And that was when he saw them. They were staring at him from behind a tree, a couple with their hands clasped together. Clearly, they were two of those mascot freaks, as their costumes were antiquated and they were both wearing masks, though they were significantly less gaudy than the others, only covering the upper halves of their faces, under which he could tell they were both rather good-looking young people.
They also looked oddly familiar. Jack glanced up at the cartoon mascots grinning down at him from the sign above the coaster track, then back at them. Blonde woman, dark-haired man. Yep, they must have been the Inamorati. If that was their ride, then it made total sense why they’d be loitering around, but why were they staring at him, hiding just out of shouting distance? It was down right creepy.
“Jack, we need you to break our stalemate,” a hand suddenly clapped him on the back, and he almost went for his knife before realizing that it was just Bacchae and not a creep with a mask. “Kei wants to go to Pantalone’s Lounge to get a drink, but come on, we gotta go on some more rides first, right? I think we should scope out the rest of the park with Columbina’s Scullery Tour.”
“Listen, if you don’t want me fucking cranky for the rest of the day, you’ll let me get a little alcohol in my system first.”
Eventually, Kei got her way, and they retired briefly in the oddly distinguished lounge, which was decorated up to look like some rich fuck’s study or some shit. There were… so many fake books on the shelves, all with stupid titles like “Old Possum’s Guide to Cutlery,” and “On the History of Self-Important Ponces.” In other words, it was stuffy as hell, but Bacchae snuck an extra shot of vodka into Kei’s cosmo and she was much more agreeable after that.
And even she had a lot of fun. Though with all that alcohol in her system she had to sit out one or two of the more intense rides. At the end of the day, they all agreed that Il Dotore’s Asylum was the best ride, but that wasn’t a surprise considering it was a lavishly decked-out dark ride with a roller coaster section at the end that went backwards. The line for it was surprisingly short too so they probably went on it like five times.
Considering the perpetual cloud cover there wasn’t really a sunset, but eventually dusk fell and the air took on a moist chill. Kei was also threatening to become irritably hung over if they didn’t stop for dinner, so they decided to resume their rampage the following day.
“We could head over to their ‘downtown’ area,” Bacchae opined. “Way too clean for my taste but could be worth a party.”
From over his shoulder, Kei groaned a little. “If you say that word again I’m gonna barf.”
“What, ‘downtown’? Or ‘clean’ maybe?”
“You’re a jackass,” she mumbled.
Bacchae laughed, but stopped when he realized that the shaking might actually cause her to blow chunks. And then he’d have to choose between her and his coat and he didn’t like the outcome either way.
In the end they decided to just get a quick bite at the pizza place attached to their hotel and then take Kei back to the room. It was set up like one of those joints that was totally just a front for the mob, but this one was kind of lame because all of the old photos on the wall were clearly edited to include famous gangsters in them. Lucky Luciano probably hadn’t gone to this knock-off Uno’s in the middle of a resort. Also, they had little mechanical cutouts of cartoon men in bowler hats that would periodically peep through the several fake windows and doorways and that was just trying way too damn hard.
Still, the pizza wasn’t all that bad. It made Kei feel a bit better too, and by the time they’d gotten the bill she was well enough to go take a shower and head to bed. She wanted to go back by herself, it wasn’t all that far, after all, but Bacchae had run out of his jacket cigarettes anyway, so he decided to go with her.
“So, we breakin’ up for the evening, then?” Jack asked as they stepped out into the damp night air.
“Guess so, yeah,” Bacchae shrugged. Nodding, Jack made a quick wave and started off into the darkness. “Hey,” Bacchae called after him. “Don’t have too much fun out there.”
Jack barked out a laugh. “I’m on bloody vacation, mate. Jus’ goin’ for a walk.”
“Welp, see you in the morning then,” Bacchae didn’t think too hard about it. Kei was nearly falling asleep on his arm. So he guided her back to the main hotel entrance before heading across the darkened lobby.
There was still someone behind the counter, which was designed to look like stucco wall cracked just enough that the bricks shone through. She gave him a small smile as they passed but for some reason, Bacchae felt like something in the air had… shifted. Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, and he didn’t like the way her gaze followed them to the elevator. It was probably nothing. Just the uncanny feeling of empty hotels at night. Now that he thought about it, hotels always felt like that. It was just easier to ignore in the daylight.
Jack was getting the exact same vibe about the pathways around the resort. It seemed like there was a little less light around than there should have been, and the foliage was a little too thick. He wasn’t afraid or even unnerved really. There wasn’t anything for Jack to fear. It just felt a little… odd, that was all.
Come to think of it, he’d been kinda feeling this way all day, ever since he’d spotted those two… mascots.
“What the fuck?” he muttered, flicking his cigarette into a bush. Up ahead of him was a rare streetlamp, surrounded by a little break in the trees. And right under it, as if they’d been waiting for him, were the two blank-faced figures that had acted so dodgy earlier that day. The feeling was exacerbated now, as they stood entirely motionless, staring at him.
Something really fucked up was going on here.
The Inamorati led, and Jack followed.
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