A Ride to Nowhere

When the alarm woke Jeannie up that morning she was a lot less grumpy about it than usual.

She got up, made her bed, tidied the room a bit, and went for a quick shower. Her mom had already gone to work, but she had prepared some breakfast beforehand. Jeannie hurriedly devoured the meal and got dressed in her regular clothing.

Every one of her shirts proudly and prominently displayed her favorite Hero in a variety of different poses. Skull Knight. His dull white armor looked amazing no matter what the lighting or background. His mask, or rather helmet struck the perfect balance between creepy and cool. The day she'd get his autograph, and she swore to all that is holy that that day was coming, she could finally die happy.

With a hum on her lips, she danced out the door. The reason for her excitement was threefold. Not only was tomorrow her 15th birthday, but aside from that it was also her favourite day of the year. Yes, tomorrow was Halloween. And her best friend Hanna Dancer had promised her a special surprise for today. She couldn't wait.

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"What is it with you and Skull Knight?" Lindsay said as she flew over the school gate. "Skull Knight sucks."

The Abraham Dancer School for the Gifted was an ordinary school by all accounts, except for one small detail. All of the students, as well as the teachers, were Empowered. Not counting Mages, people with extraordinary abilities made up about 30% of the population, so seeing a huge number of them together at once, apart from Hero teams, was a rare sight.

Jeannie both loved and hated it here. Loved, because all her friends went here too; Hated because....well, she always felt a bit out of place, seeing her classmates and the other students. It's not that she lacked a Power, hers was just......not that remarkable.

"Oh yeah, says the Daylighter simp." she rebutted as she followed below her friend.

"What's wrong with Daylighter? Everybody loves Daylighter." The older girl floated carefully back on the ground.

"That's just it though. He's sooo boring. Boy Scouts don't do it for me. He's a cutie, but I like my Heroes cool, you know?"

"I guess. But Skull Knight isn't even the leader of his team. Why aren't you fangirling over Carfaxes or whatever his name is?"

Jeannie looked at the flier with a raised eyebrow, who shrugged in response.

"Abraxas.....is great too. But just not as great." She took a deep breath. "All together though, Creature Feature beats whichever team Daylighter is gonna put together any day of the week.

"Said no one ever." Lindsay laughed as they entered the schoolhouse.

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The only saving grace of Friday's first periods was that she could finally talk to Hanna. Or more so let Hannah talk to her. Hanna's family owned the school, and they also lived on the premises. Near the back of the property stood a little mansion that housed the whole of the Dancer clan, meaning there wasn't really an opportunity to go to school together.

"Okay class, let us all go to page 16."

Miss Breacher sat in her chair, lazily filing her nails, as Jeannie's stylus softly rose up from its holder and tapped her to the correct spot on the screen built into her table. She was not the only student this was happening to. Miss Breacher had incredible control over a pretty wide-reaching area without even having to look. It certainly made things easier, but the more streamlined the process to get to the learning material, the more time they had to actually learn. And that was incredibly boring.

Luckily, Hanna could help.

"I bet you're curious about my gift. It's pretty amazing, I think. ~" Her voice rang loudly in Jeannie's ear, almost too loud, but no one but her seemed to take notice. Hanna hadn't even needed to open her mouth. Her particular talent was the ability to project her thoughts into other people's heads. It could be annoying at times, but when the alternative was history lessons, it was a godsend.

Jeannie looked at her and nodded lightly, careful to not arouse too much suspicion.

"I'll tell you about it during recess. First, though, you won't believe what happened yesterday at home. Mom was pruning her feathers when...."

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"A Ride to Nowhere?" She read aloud from the ticket Hanna had given her.

"Yeah! Cool, right?" The girl was grinning from ear to ear, holding her own ticket up.

"What is it?" Jeannie was a tad confused. With all the hype this gift had had, she couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

"Really? I thought for sure a horror geek like you would know all about this." Lindsay stood with them, a crumpled ticket sticking out of her pocket too.

"I'm not surprised. Seems to be a pretty underground thing." Hanna pulled out her phone and showed Jeannie a website. It looked pretty shoddily made. The purple background and red text gave it a nice, spooky vibe though. "From what my dad told me, this a yearly Halloween event thing. They come to a random place in the country and offer up a top-of-the-line Horror experience."

"Then how come I have never heard of it?" Jeannie asked. She was always on the lookout for events like these. Not that she ever found one in her area.

"That's the cool thing. They never announce where they are going to be. And not only that, they only start selling tickets, in person, a week before Halloween. You'd have to randomly stumble onto a ticket seller and be knowledgeable or curious enough to either get what these tickets are for or buy them blindly. And luckily for you, dear Jeannie, my dad did."

Jeannie resisted the urge to ask if her dad was the knowledgeable or curious kind and instead focused on something else.

"So he bought these tickets for me?"

Hanna nodded.

"Yeah.....I mean, kinda. Well, technically, he bought them for me specifically so I could give one to you as a birthday present. So he sort of bought them for you?"

"Then why'd he buy three?"

Suddenly, an image flashed into Jeannie's mind. It was of her, Hanna, and Lindsay. The three of them lay on the ground in the street, stomachs slit open, entrails pouring out. She took a step back on wobbly knees.

Hanna noticed her friend's distress, turned to the fourth person in their little group, and flicked the giggling girl's nose.

"Oww!" The girl bore a great resemblance to Hanna, which was to be expected since she was her twin. Like many Empowered twins, their abilities were complimentary. While Hanna could project words into other people's minds, her sister projected images. A devastatingly effective combo when working together, however, they rarely did.

"Stop tormenting Jeannie." Hanna turned back to her friend. "The third one was originally meant for her, but Anna here is too much of a chickenshit wuss, so she kindly donated her spot to Lin here."

Lindsay dipped into an exaggerated curtsy. "For which I shall be forever grateful, Milady."

Anna rolled her eyes and pushed Lindsay's shoulder.

"You shut up. Anyway, I just showed you what's gonna happen. No way am I going to go take a ride on Halloween evening with a bunch of strangers past 8PM. I like being alive. It's a lot of fun."

Hanna shrugged in response.

"See? Chickenshit wuss. Just ignore her. This is going to be awesome."

Jeannie pulled up the website on her own phone.

Join our spooktacular team for the joyride of joyrides! Spooks and scares galore await you, as you take the Ride To Nowhere! Don't be afraid to be a little afraid. We promise you one thing and believe us when we say it: This will be a Halloween you'll never forget.

She smiled.

"You're right. This is going to be awesome."

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"Dad, hurry up!" Jeannie whined as she rushed out of the car. Her father exited the vehicle with a sigh.

"Calm down, kiddo. We're already late. A minute more won't kill you."

Not even bothering to dignify that with a response she grabbed his hand and dragged him to the old train station.

"I still don't know about this..." He mumbled.

Usually, the place was locked down, but today the doors stood wide open. A plastic skeleton in a butler outfit was positioned so that it pointed inside.

"Nice." she whispered as she practically dragged her father inside.

Not that far inside she could see a group of kids standing near one of the stairs that led up to a departure platform. One of them, a girl dressed as a fairy, separated from the group and ran up to the two late-comers. After a few steps, she rose up from the flood and flew the rest of the way.

"Lindsay!" Jeannie yelled with a wave. As soon as she was in reach the girl set herself down again.

"Mr. Sydney, you have to hurry. The parents are having a pre-tour talk with the organizers right now. I don't think you want to miss this."

He nervously adjusted his glasses.

"Hey there, Lindsay. And you're right. I don't. I assume it's on the platform?"

She nodded.

"Yeah, but they've already been up there for ten or so minutes, so I don't know how much longer you'll have."

"Thanks, I'll get right to it." He quickly looked at his daughter before he ran toward the stairs. "See you in a bit, honey. Go and mingle with the others."

The two waited until he climbed up two steps at a time before they made their way over to join the rest.

"So, a fairy, huh?"

"It fits, doesn't it? And let me guess, you are the mighty Skull Knight?"

Jeannie took out her plastic spike mace and struck a pose.

'The one and only. Prepare for your doom, evildoer! It won't come as quick as you'd like."

"Wow. How fresh and original."

"We'll, at least I'm not dressed as a villain, like..."

They were interrupted by another figure as they finally reached the other kids. The girl was dressed in what looked a bit like a stage Magician outfit, top hat and all, with the addition of a half-mask, covering the left side of her face.

"You see, Lindsay? Jeannie hath come wearing a Skull Knight costume. T'is just like the cards foretold. Ohoho, it seems Fate is smiling upon me as usual."

Jeannie sighed.

"Shut up, Hanna, I come as Skull Knight every year. And the Odd Gentleman doesn't talk like that."

The Villain crossed her arms and huffed.

"You don't know that. His victims say he talks weird. Maybe he does." Before the ribbing could escalate further she shook her head and led the two into the group. "Anyway, let's introduce you. Guys, this is Jeannie. As you can see we did not exaggerate her Skull Knight fetish."

"It's not a fetish! I just think he's cool!"

"Sure you do. Anyway, these are the other lucky folks whose parents managed to snatch a ticket."

A boy in a yellow suit and white cape stepped forward holding out his glowing left hand.

"I'm Jamie. Isn't my Daylighter costume awesome? I can turn the lights on and off at will!"

He demonstrated as they shook hands.

"Uhm, yeah, Awesome. Right."

"Out of the way, whelp." a female voice grunted as Jamie was effortlessly pushed out of the way. The girl behind him was easily twice as tall as he was. Did she kneel down before? Jeannie's pondering was answered as she slowly shrunk back to the size of a teen girl. "Hey, I'm Kim." She held up her hand for a high five. Jeannie obliged.

"Amazonia, eh? Didn't think we'd have two Villains among us."

"Well," Hanna interjected. "Villains are just a lot more fun than Heroes."

"Preach it, Sister." Kim agreed and Jeannie rolled her eyes.

She looked at one of the two remaining kids, both boys. His costume was very....angular, and mechanical. Despite that, he wore a baseball cap and an X-Men T-shirt.

"And who are you supposed to be?"

He looked at her with a mechanical whirr that freaked her out a little.

"INPUT NAME: MATTHEW. DESIGNATION: HUMAN TEENAGER; UNREMARKABLE." His voice was heavily filtered and had an uncanny quality to it.

"Nice to meet you?...."

"LIKEWISE."

The boy next to him sighed and stepped forward. He was dressed as Doctor Mephisto, a popular horror movie killer. Doctor's Orders 9 released recently too, so it was topical enough.

"Hi, I'm Greg. That's my brother Matt. He, uhm......he is going as a human child who is definitely not a robot." He scratched his head and looked away.

"STATEMENT: TRUE."

"Sooooo, Jeannie started. "He is actually going as a robot who pretends to be a human child who is definitely not a robot?"

"Essentially."

"STATEMENT: FALSE."

"So do any of you know what this event actually is?"

Greg shook his head.

"Not a clue, but it sounds exciting."

"Yeah!" Kim yelled, bumping her fists together. She had grown a bit again. "I'm ready to get my adrenaline pumping! Amazonia needs her thrills!"

Jeannie wanted to say something but just at that moment, the parents came walking down the steps. Every child was pulled aside by their guardian, and she was no different.

"Okay, sweetie. I had a really nice talk with the organizers. They were very friendly, very understanding, and they answered all of our questions and concerns."

"Great. So what's going on?"

"As soon as we're done here you'll go up there. You board the train. They showed us the route, it makes a full circle. In two hours you'll be back here at the station. Your mother and I will be waiting to pick you up. Does that sound good?"

She nodded.

"Good. I'll be on my way then. Have fun, honey,"

"I will, Dad." she said as he turned and left. Before leaving the station for good he turned around one last time, waved, and was gone. One by one the other adults said their goodbyes and went on their way.

"Come on, losers!" Kim shouted and ran up the stairs, shortly followed by Hanna who grabbed Jeannie's hand to pull her along.

"Destiny awaits!"

The platform was abandoned, except for a single man standing next to a derelict-looking train. On first glance it seemed like it consisted of more rust than metal, and a luminescent bright light from within bathed the nighttime station in an eerie red glow.

The man was an older gentleman, in his early-to-late forties Jeannie guessed, who wore a nicely tailored red-and-black suit. Cartoony skulls littered his tie and his hands were clad in what looked like soft, satin gloves. He bowed deeply when he saw the first kids come up the stairs, but he waited until everyone was present before he spoke.

"Welcome, one and all, to the ride of your lifetime. You will not regret coming here today, I promise you that. My name is unimportant, but you may call me the Guide because that is what I am. Your Guide to Nowhere. Before we embark on this terrifying journey I have heard that we have a birthday girl amongst us today."

It took Jeannie a second to raise her hand.

"Aaah, the little Skull Knight, is it? Terrific taste in Heroes. He's my favorite too, you know?"

The Guide held out his hand and Jeannie took it only to immediately pull it back as soon as he got a grip, leaving her gauntlet behind in his grasp.

"What the fuck?!" came the conspicuously non-robotic voice from Matt, while both Hanna and Lindsay laughed. The Guide himself seemed plenty amused as well.

"Now that's a neat trick. I like you more by the second."

When the gauntlet was pulled off her, it revealed what was inside. And that was a thin, white skeletal bone hand.

The Power Jeannie was born with was one of invisibility. Partial invisibility. Whenever she wanted she could make her body disappear from view entirely. Everything but her skeleton. According to her mother, she was born while that Power was fully active, which led to quite a bit of panic in the delivery room. It wasn't very useful in day-to-day life, but in moments like these, she wouldn't trade it for the world.

"Now that we've all had our fun, let us begin the perilous journey Nowhere." The Guide said as he gave the piece of her costume he was holding back to her. As if on cue the train doors opened behind him, fog spilling out onto the platform.

"Enter. If you dare." He was the first to step in. The others hesitated for a bit.

"Oh god, all of you are such pansies." Kim groaned, ran up to the open door, and jumped in.

"I think I'm just going to go in normally." Greg said, followed by a "STATEMENT: SAME." and both brothers went inside.

"Let's go." Hanna whispered to both her friends and took the lead. Lindsay flew in after her.

Jeannie took a deep breath.

"Alright." she whispered. "Let's hope the website didn't lie."

And with that, she stepped inside.