Eerie, Indiana fanfiction: Boardwalk
The Eerie Boardwalk Amusement Arcade twinkled in the encroaching gloom. Multi-coloured bulbs that had burned out decades ago cast patches of red and blue and yellow on wooden walkways that had rotted and fallen into the lake before Marshall was even born. A Ferris wheel rotated sedately at the very end of the pier, flickering in and out of existence along with its passengers, and the air smelled of fried onions, and candyfloss, and dead things dissolving in brackish water.
They were here because of the radio, the old-fashioned cathedral style radio that by all rights should have been in the Evidence Locker, but instead sat out on the workbench in the Secret Spot, because Simon liked to listen to Woody Guthrie while they typed up their cases. Mars had just finished tagging a set of Russian nesting dolls when the latest Glen Miller number finished and WERD-FM launched into a promotional spot for the Eerie Boardwalk Amusement Emporium, opening Saturday May 7, special previews Friday night, half-price entry for the first hundred attendees.
A barker in a candy-striped waistcoat and straw boater stood on an upturned crate by the entrance, exhorting passers-by to step on up, come on down, and marvel at the wondrous world that waited beneath the painted canvas banners. He was missing the left side of his face, but he grinned with all his black and broken teeth and his empty socket sparkled with good-humoured mischief, for a given value of good-humoured.
The crowd moved forward, eager and anticipatory, and Simon and Marshall pressed together as a gossamer swirl of cloche-hatted women and men in fedoras and double-breasted suits passed through them, trailing wisps of ectoplasm that burned and froze and evaporated in blue-white sparks as it brushed against living flesh. Just inside the pleasure grounds, carousel horses with wide, terrified eyes turned endlessly to the accompanying sounds of a band organ.
Marshall sighed and reached for his camera.
"Come on, Simon," he said. "We might as well get pictures while we're here."
Simon, who hadn't wanted to point out that May 7th actually fell on a Sunday this year, or that a 10 cent all-inclusive entrance fee was a little too reasonable even with the half-price offer, slipped the head-mounted Polaroid over his ghost-proof bobble-hat, declined a paper bag of suspiciously-wriggling roasted nuts from a semi-translucent vendor, and followed him beneath the archway.