[flippyshark]

On The Beam

The sudden barking of a mottled blue-gray pit bull shook Frank out of his reverie. He had been staring across the water at a shape that he knew had to be the castle. A little more daylight and he might be able to make out the details, see what remained of it. But for now, the dog deserved more attention. Frank faced the animal and put his hand out, palm down, and whispered gently. “Take it easy, boy. I’m friendly.”

“Radar!” A rough voice cried out from behind him. “Radar, shut the hell up!” Frank breathed a little easier. The dog had a name and a companion. Frank turned and found the face behind the voice. A frail-looking black man, a ring of grey curly hair around a dark bald pate, squinted at Frank as he ran over. “Don’t you mind the dog. He ain’t never hurt anybody. Radar, shut your trap!”

Radar leapt joyfully at the old man, and soon forgot about the intruder. “I’m sorry I disturbed you,” Frank said. “I was just looking.”

“Yeah, you ain’t the first. Folks used to come out here all the time, try to make they way over to the park. Ain’t no rides at Ep-World no more. Last ride was a long time ago.”

“Is there anyone over there now?”

“I doubt it. Place ain’t fit to live in. I haven’t been out there for ten years myself. Even back then, there was nothin’ to see. Some of it is burned down, some of it all choked up with plants and trees. The old tunnels is filled up with water. And hoo-ee! The whole place stink like an August ****house. I’m JD. Why don’t you let me make you some coffee.”

Frank thanked JD and followed him to a small building that had once been a gift boutique. He recognized it from over thirty years before, when it had been filled with last chance souvenirs for visitors heading back to their hotels. Now, it was a rustic shack for an old man and his dog.

JD warmed up a pot of coffee he had made earlier. He poured it into a plastic cup on which a faded image of a once-famous cartoon face could faintly be seen. Frank took a sip. “Not bad, JD,” he said and held the little cup aloft.

“Good as you gonna find out here. You by yourself?”

“Yeah. I’ve been alone for a while now.”

“I ain’t got no family but Radar anymore. Fishing is still pretty good on the lake. Hardly anybody pass through here these days. I guess there’s still the ‘ceph to worry ‘bout, but if I ain’t caught it yet, I figure I must be immune.”

Frank had walked from a settlement near Tampa Bay. It had taken him three days. On the way, he had seen hand-painted signs by many lakes and swamps. “Stay Out of the Water.” One sign had a painted skull atop a bright red scrawl – “INSEFALITUS!” Frank had already drunk from plenty of purportedly deadly sources, and here he was, sixty-five and probably in better shape than when he had been at forty.

“I want to get over, just to take a look,” Frank said after he and JD had talked about hunting and cooking, and the scarcity of cigarettes and coffee, even in the larger communities.

“That lake, it’s a lot bigger than it used to be. Once upon a time, there was a whole drainage system, gates and levees and whatnot. All flooded now. The whole property. Only reason some of that park is still above ground is ‘cause they built it on top of those old tunnels.”

“Is there a boat anywhere?”

“Nah. Only way over is to get on the beam. Maybe you can walk it all the way around. Ten years since I walked the beam myself. Who knows what kind of shape it’s in. Maybe it’s broken. I wouldn’t know.”

Around noon, JD took Frank to a decrepit station, up a cracked and broken ramp, and showed him where to step from the old load platform onto the elevated concrete track. Dan placed one foot, then the other, onto the beam and began to walk alongside the platform where thousands had once waited to step into streamlined, air-conditioned monorails.

“Ain’t no guard rails, Mr. Frank. You gotta walk real slow and don’t look down too much.” JD leaned against a metal gate, while Radar sniffed curiously along the bare ledge of the platform.

Frank walked a few steps beyond the station, to where the beam stood some twenty-five feet above the ground. Below, there were patches of broken concrete and thousands of weeds. Beyond, he could see that the beam slowly ramped up to thirty, forty feet above the water. From here, his view of the park was restricted only by the riotous growth of trees on the far shore. He could see the spires clearly. They were no longer fairy tale blue, but pale green and grey.

Frank walked a little further. He shivered reflexively as he saw the ground and rail shifting on different planes below his feet, creating that uncanny tightrope effect. He gazed at the landscape, the remains of the resort hotels, now partly submerged. One of them had all but caved in. Another looked structurally the same as it had been, an ersatz South Seas village now adorned with a patina of mold and a jungle of kudzu. Trees had grown up and around some of the pylons that held up the beam. In some places, branches had grown over the track he now intended to walk. He could see that his journey wasn’t going to be an easy one.

JD hollered from the platform. “What you see from there, that’s all there is worth seein.’ Come on back!” But Frank had made up his mind long before he had arrived at this place. He walked back to the platform and smiled at JD.

“I’m going as far as I can go.”

“There’s been a lot of folks felt that way. They all dead. You ain’t even got a gun, a knife, nothin!”

“I’m not gonna stay there forever. I’ve just gotta go see.”

“What is it ‘bout that place! Hell, I used to work there myself, hosing down the sidewalks on third shift.” JD broke into a wide grin. ‘****, wouldn’t want to have to clean that place now! And I tell you what, the pay sucks worse now than back when they hired me.” He let out a laugh that half sounded like a gasp.

‘I just gotta see it again,” Frank said, and he started walking. “I’ll come back and pay you a visit when I’m done!” he shouted and he waved a hand, then looked ahead and began to stroll along to the first bend of the track.

“Got a feeling you won’t,” JD said to himself, and he watched the other old man, tall and strong, but also gray, sunburnt and with such a sad face. “My guess, he gonna disappear,” JD said as he scratched the top of Radar’s head. “They always do, always when they look at that castle and get those sad eyes.”