“Sure,” Jake smiles and follows Dean to the other crowd of boys. They whisper about different plans of avoiding detection as if they were secret agents. They all laughed and headed for the door. One boy, Derek, a rough looking teen, opens the door slightly and peeks out. “Looks clear,” he whispers and the boys follow him out of the bunkhouse. The park is very dark, with only a few lights on here and there, but they made sure to stay out of the light.
“Everything’s closed up,” Dean groans, “this isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be.” Jake shrugs as the boys wander around the dark boardwalk and reach the largest roller coaster at the park, all shut down for the night. “Hey, I’ve always wanted to walk the tracks of a roller coaster,” Derek laughs and ducks under the ropes for the line. Several other boys follow him, but Jake doesn’t. “No way, what if that thing comes on or something.” Derek scoffs at him, “fine wuss, stay here, and keep quiet.” Derek leads the boys along the track. Dean stays with Jake, as does another boy, Garret, a quiet but excitable kid. They watch as Derek leads the boys up and down the first hills and follow the tracks. They leap over to the exiting half of a loop and then follow a service walkway up to a massive tunnel.
The last thing Jake, Dean, and Garrett see is the flash of a lighter and the light fade into the tunnel. “Well, I’m not staying here,” Dean walks away, “I’m gonna check out some of the rest of the park.” Jake follows him, “wait up, I’ll go, too.” Garrett just follows, not wanting to be left alone in the dark.
They follow the boardwalk, and peek inside all the small tents filled with carnival games. “Check it out,” Jake points at the ski ball tent. The boys look inside and look it over. There is already a set of wooden balls ready to be rolled and Dean picks one up. He takes aim and rolls it up the ramp. It misses any high scoring holes and rolls down to the five-point hole, but as it does, an alarm goes off.
“What did you do, Dean?” Jake yells over the alarm. “I just rolled one ball, jeez,” Dean yells back. Suddenly, lights start coming on all over the boardwalk, and the light comes on over the ski ball tent. “They got us,” Garrett yells and runs out of the tent. “Wait, come back,” Jake yells, but the alarm is just too loud.
Jake looks over and sees several flashlights moving along the boardwalk…