The hobbits gazed up at the three-story building, covered in synthetic nylon cobwebs and dust. Eerie music played from loudspeakers set in the grass along the path leading up to the ‘house’, and fake lightning flashed against the windows.
‘Now that I’m here, I don’t want to go in,’ Frodo said, pressed backwards against the other hobbits.
Pippin shoved him forward. ‘But you’re the oldest. You have to go in first.’
Frodo sniffed. ‘Why? I thought you were oldest.’
‘Because. And no, you’re older. I’m just taller,’ Pippin retorted.
Strider groaned. ‘I’ll go in,’ he said in a dull tone, and strode towards the house. The hobbits followed along behind cautiously, whispering to themselves and whistling. When they reached the entrance a man in a mask took their tickets. The mask was odd, not like most spooky masks with blood or scars, or even deformed. It looked more like a worn out old man, with thin black hairs stuck about on its head, and liver spots. Its pointed teeth grinned at them, and huge eyeholes had been cut out where the man’s eyes were. It had a tiny flat nose, and the skin was like a grey mottled skin color. Strider cringed when he saw it. They walked through the doorway, where another person stood to show them to the small cars that would take them through the house. You couldn’t tell who this person was, for they wore a long black cape, and their face melted away in the darkness of the hood. It held out a claw-like metal hand and pointed to the next car coming empty down the hill out of the darkness. It had two benches, and a little door in the side. The black-cloaked figure opened a door, and motioned for them to get in. Strider looked suspiciously at the cloaked figure. He shrugged and sat down on the low bench, pulling his knees up to his chest. The four shaking hobbits tumbled in after him. Sam sat in his stationary place beside Strider, then changed his mind and switched with Pippin. Pippin sat down beside Strider, slapping his hands on his knees nervously.
‘Well, here we are,’ he said in a wavery voice.
Strider nodded.
‘And it’s so dark, and the music send chills up my spine,’ Pippin added.
Strider nodded.
‘Did you notice the black cloaked guy? He was grinning.’
Strider nodded, and then stopped. ‘Wait a minute, how could you tell?’
‘I couldn’t. I just heard him laughing to himself.’
Strider shivered in spite of the summer heat. ‘Yeah, okay then. Just hush Pippin.’
‘Sure,’ Pippin laughed nervously, and sat as still as stone. The ride moved forward, squeaking along on the tracks, and rattling along unstably. As they went along, and the suspension grew worse, Strider began to wish he had never sat in front. Pippin must have agreed, for he clutched to Strider’s arm as cold sweat ran down his face. They came up to a curtain, black and with little white glow-in-the-dark skulls drawn on it. A speaker beside them erupted in metallic laughter, and the car slowly pushed through the curtain. The three hobbits in back nervously clung together, whimpering softly. Strider cringed as they slid past the curtain, screwing up his eyes. He waited for something startling. But there was nothing. Only a little cemetery surrounded them, made up of astro-turf and cardboard headstones. Plastic bones jutted out of the graves for a spooky effect. Pippin laughed.
‘Look, Strider. They’re trying to crawl out of the ground! That’s so funny!’ He began laughing shrilly, and the three hobbits in back joined in. As they neared the end of that section, Strider was feeling a bit more relaxed. This isn’t going to be so bad, he thought to himself. He sighed, and leaned forward. At that very second a speaker-provided shriek filled the air, and a ghost made of a white sheet with black eyes painted on it dropped from the ceiling into Strider’s lap. He shouted in fear, flinging the ghost away from him. Then he blinked, staring at the sheet.
‘Hey, that’s not what real ghosts look like!’ he said with a laugh.
Pippin broke into a series of nervous giggles beside him.
Strider laughed. ‘Good one,’ he said to the ceiling. The ride creaked on down the track, and through a beaded curtain. Here was a different room. It was a small room, and there was a table, and one chair on it. A black bowling ball sat in the center of the table, except for it glowed strangely. Blazing red fire swirled around inside it. A statue of a man in a white robe sat before it, holding his shriveled hand over it. A speaker in him erupted.
‘Welcome to my tower!’ it boomed. The light in the ball grew fiercer. ‘I will tell your fortune!’
‘Oh please,’ Strider said, rolling his eyes.
Pippin gazed at the ball. ‘Ooh,’ he sighed. ‘It’s so bright, and……’ his voice broke off as he stared at the ball. The fake lightning flashed about the room, and the clicking robotic eyes of the man blinked erratically. Strider cringed at it, shaking his head at the ideas some people came up with nowadays. They passed from this room, and into another. It was dark, and cold. Far away, it seemed, in the shadows, was a darkened pool of water. And gliding silently across the pool was a small dark figure in a boat, silhouetted against the rocky lighted background. Eerie music played in the speakers next to the tracks, and the figure looked up in its boat. Its eyes shone green in the darkness like two lamps, and a gurgling noise came up from its throat. The creature turned the boat around by paddling with its wide flat hands, hissing to itself. Here the ride stopped, and the boat continued to paddle towards them, its occupant quietly hissing.
‘Precious,’ it gurgled. The hobbits gasped, clinging to each other. Strider frowned. This thing seemed oddly familiar. But he had no more time to think, for the car jerked forward and squealed out of that room and into another. This one was entirely black. Strider passed his hand in front of his face, and yet he could not see it. Pippin began to whimper softly beside him. The other hobbits were busy whispering loudly to each other about bodily functions, and how the chili cheese fries had affected them. Strider rolled his eyes, although no one, not even himself could see him, and reached back and smacked one of them over the head. He wasn’t sure which one he had hit, but was pleased with the satisfactory ‘Oww,’ he had caused. He peered forward in the pressing blackness, hoping to see even the tiniest bit of light. Nothing. There was a slight creaking noise, like joints of pipes or machines, and then a blacklight in the ceiling flicked on. The hobbits gasped in delight, and suddenly started pointing out stuff that glowed. Their white teeth shone out light fluorescent bulbs, and buttons and straps and shirts gleamed. Strider laughed to himself, obviously not obvious to the gray streaks in his hair lit up like a meteor shower. Then suddenly they noticed it. Maybe Sam noticed it first, or maybe they all did at once, but it startled them so much that Frodo let out a high-pitched scream. Pippin glanced sidelong at him.
‘I didn’t know you screamed like that,’ he said, and then he saw why Frodo had screamed. The place was lined with delicate white spider web, and tiny little rubber spiders clung to it.
Pippin laughed. ‘Is that all?’
Merry shook his head, his eyes as wide as golf balls, for in the center of the room, hanging before them, was a spider the size of Gandalf himself. It was crafted of papier-mâché and PVC pipes, tied to the ceiling with nylon rope, but the sight of it was terribly menacing. Sam and Frodo clung to each other, screaming like children in their high hobbits voices, sliding down into the seat as far as they could. Merry kept glancing down at his cousin and back up at the crafty spider model, and blinking. Pippin laughed nervously, holding onto Strider’s sleeve. Soon they were moving directly under the spider, inch by inch as the car slowed down. Strider glanced up at the spider, and noticed that one of the ropes was twitching. The pulley they were set up on began moving up and down, and the spider moved with it. It shook around clumsily, and a little door flipped open in its belly. Suddenly hundreds of little rubber spiders were shaken out of it, like candy from a piñata, and they dropped all over the occupants of the cart. Sam and Frodo screamed violently, bouncing around in the cart as wiggly little black rubber spiders dropped onto them. Pippin laughed, head upturned, catching them in his hands as if they were snowflakes. Merry was trapped in back with the two hysterical spider-stricken hobbits, and was dragged under the seat, constricted by the seat belt, until he was screaming too. Strider groaned, leaning his head against the lap bar. It always has to go this way, he thought painfully to himself. He checked his watch and popped two more Tylenol tabs into his mouth, chewing them to a powder. The cart jerked around on the tracks, ready to tip, as three of its occupants thrashed around madly. Suddenly, the light blinked off, leaving them all in total and utter blackness. Strider blinked, sighing with relief as the screaming subsided to soft whimpers.
‘Sam, is there a spider on me?’ Strider heard Frodo whisper hoarsely. There was the sound of clothes rustling, and a slap, and Frodo hissed. ‘Oww, Sam, that hurt,’ he whispered.
‘Sorry,’ the little gardener whispered.
‘You should be,’ came the icy reply.
Pippin laughed nervously. Strider felt a soft breeze run past his face as they pushed through the next curtain. And soon they were in another lighted room. It wasn’t as nearly sinister or creepy as the others had been, but something about it sent a shiver up Strider’s spine. He soon realized it was because the air conditioning vent was over his head. He chuckled to himself, peering ahead down the tunnel. It was like the first one, with eerie cardboard tombstones sticking out of fake grass, and bones jutting out of the mounds with rags hanging from them. Pippin giggled at them, and reached out to touch. Strider yanked him back by his collar right before he slipped out of the cart. The hobbit lay back on the seat choking and whining, and whispering, ‘I think I can. I think I can!’ Strider rolled his eyes and turned away from him. The cart moved up a steep incline, rolling and clicking along the tracks. Strider leaned back, closing his eyes as a relaxed smile slid across his face. Then, right at the top, the cart stopped with a strange whirring clunk, and it didn’t move. Pippin looked around.
‘Ai! What happened?’
‘I’m supposing the ride stopped,’ Frodo said dully. Merry mouthed something that looked like ‘Legs are less’ at his cousin, and Frodo only shrugged. A computer-generated voice clicked on over the loudspeakers.
‘We are sorry for the inconvience you have suffered due to technical difficulties with our mechanical components and port adhering generators here in The Haunted House WonderLand Pavillion of Fear. Riding will resume momentarily.’ The voice cackled eerily again, sending Pippin into a series of screaming fits and a cold sweat, and clicked off. Sam clutched the edge of the car, peering into the tombstone inflicted yard stretched out before them.
‘Are you sure those things aren’t real?’ he asked warily, pointing at the rag-draped bones jutting out of the ground. They wiggled mechanically, revving back and forth. Pippin laughed.
‘Let’s see!’ He reached out and grabbed one, pulling it out of the ground. The motor inside groaned against the hobbit’s pull, but Pippin kept on. Suddenly a small white puppet ghost popped up from behind the tombstone nearest Pippin.
‘Boo!’ it cried in a tiny voice, and disappeared behind the tombstone in a flurry of white sheet. Pippin screamed, and his grip on the bone he clutched slid, just as the motor jerked it, and Pippin fell backwards against Strider, who had been happily dozing.
‘Oof!’ he grunted, sitting up. He glared at Pippin, who lay across the bench, white as a sheet.
They sat there for what seemed like forever, but according to Sam’s watch was only five minutes, waiting. Every thirty seconds the little white ghost would pop out from behind the tombstone, and every thirty seconds Pippin would loose his sanity in a storm of screaming and thrashing in fright. Finally an eerie voice laughed out metallically from a speaker screwed into the ceiling, and the ride creaked forward again. Strider sighed, hoping it would soon be over. The small swinging door loomed towards them. Prepare for your DOOM—Mwahahahaha! Was posted in green and purple letters on a small sign across the door. Then is swung open. The last room they came to was filled with grapes. The walls were painted an annoying plum-purple, and filled to the rafters on either side with huge purple grapes. They all gawked at them awkwardly.
‘Grapes?’ Frodo asked, fingering something on his necklace.
Merry shook his head. ‘Unbelievable. What does it all mean?’
‘We may never know,’ Sam muttered, rubbing his forehead.
Strider simply stared around the room, his mouth hanging open as he blinked with glazed eyes at the mounds and hills and endless seas of grapes surrounding him. Pippin whacked him on the arm.
‘Strider, what are you doing?’
But the ranger didnÂ’t respond. He only continued to stare trance-like at the mountains of purple before them. Then the cart slowly began to descend. It went rapidly downhill, and the grapes flew by them. The hobbits screamed, excited by the new thrills of a roller coaster, even if it was strangely surrounded by grapes. They neared the bottom of the hill, and then they all cringed and screamed louder. For what was waiting for them at the bottom was a huge pool of squished grapes and juice, all purple and swishy. They screamed their heads off, ducking behind each other as it flew up to them. And then with a great splash, it was all over. The car rolled forward out of the pools of grape juice, dripping and carrying a load of indignant purple people. It came to a sloshy halt at the station, where another black-cloaked attendant was waiting. The hobbits in back climbed out. Merry had covered his eyes with his palms, and now his entire face was purple save two clean rings around his eyes. He stepped out cautiously, eyeing the road behind them. Sam squished his way out, shaking like a dog. Frodo crawled out after him, and slipped on some grapes lying on the floor. He fell with a splat on the floor, wallowing in grape juice. The black cloaked person reached down quickly and held out a metal-gloved hand to the hobbit. Frodo looked up at him for a minute, and slid away from him, pulling himself off the ground by himself. Pippin stepped out, shaking out his hair.
‘Wow!’ he shouted like an overexcited teenager. ‘Dude! That was awesome!’ He let out a whistle, and clapped his hands. No one was impressed, and he slipped sheepishly back among his cousins. Strider still sat in the seat, stiff and unmoving. The attendant helped him stand to his feet, and he simply stood there, breathing.
‘So many….’ he whispered. ‘So many grapes……the purple…..round balls of grape…….too much…..I….’ he continued muttering as they walked out of the door. Strider blinked in the open sun and hissed at it, drawing his cape about him and retreating into the shadows against the wall. The hobbits shrugged, and looked around for more, when an exciting man standing at an exhibit caught their eye, and they ran off, leaving Strider pressed against the wall, murmuring to himself about grapes.

Coming up next—Chapter Six; The World’s Only Oldest Fish-Eating Bald Monkey!