A carnival's goal should be fun-for -all, but that's a lot easier said than done when you're actually running an operation marketed to all ages. The children at the carnival were surely having a blast, running around and screaming while being powered by sugar, yet the same could not be said for their parents who had to chase after them throughout the crowded fairgrounds. And, even though they were not parents themselves, Charlie and Veruca had more in common with them than the children in attendance; they were no longer those little kids waiting impatiently to get inside Willy Wonka's mysterious chocolate factory, but fully grown adults who had seen a thing or two in life. Fortunately, there were attractions at this carnival which catered to the young adult crowd, mostly in the form of fast-spinning rides with strong vertical G-forces, but there were still other attractions much closer to the ground. One attraction in particular that caught the attention of the little brute was a mystery house standing on the edge of the fairgrounds with a line made up of nothing but fellow twenty-somethings. The wall in front of the attraction made it look like a dilapidated, old Victorian house which hadn't been maintained for decades, but it wasn't more than a couple of large containers and the occasional four-walled room connected to each other behind the large wall, thus giving the attraction the illusion of being a house full of hallways.
"I want to do that one," Veruca declared as she tugged on Charlie's arm to get his attention, and then proceed to point at the attraction.
Charlie read the name of the attraction, but he couldn't quite figure out the meaning, all the while, vocalizing his thoughts, "The Mad House. What's it about?"
Veruca didn't know what the attraction was about, either, but it seemed appealing, so she wanted to experience it, thus she explained to the Good Boy, "I don't know, let's find out."
"Well, why do you want to experience the attraction if you don't know what it's about?" Charlie asked, not understanding why someone would throw themselves into a situation that they knew nothing about.
While Charlie did not understand those who were brash, Veruca did not understand why anybody would dedicate valuable time to pondering over the most mundane things instead of simply doing what you wanted to do, and she let him know that by refusing to properly respond to his question, and instead replied, "I just want to."
When it came to their outlooks on life, like with many other things, Charlie and Veruca were day and night. However, the other's opposing nature was about to help one of them survive the horrors which lied inside.
Only ten people were allowed inside the attraction at a time, and by the time it was their turn, the two former Golden Ticket winners got put in with an interesting group. At the front were a man and a woman publicly expressing affection for each other, and between them and the two heirs were group of six rowdy friends. That wave of patrons made for an interesting group, a couple, a band of friends and whatever exactly Charlie and Veruca were, even they didn't know what to call themselves. When the carnie gestured to them to enter the attraction, the group morphed into a straight line to fit through the entrance, with the boyfriend leading the pack while Charlie chugged along at the tail end. Initially, the hallway immediately after entering the attraction was covered in nothing but funhouse mirrors, and seeing his body distorted in so many different fashions made Charlie feel a bit more comfortable about what he had gotten himself into. Unfortunately, the tameness of funhouse mirrors was about to end. After the hallway, the group found themselves in a living room of sorts full of antique-looking furniture and old paintings, but oddly enough, the entire room was dark. Without that much visibility, the group found themselves startled by the sounds of objects shaking unexplainably. Some of the friends began jumping out of fright and the girlfriend immediately clung on tightly to her boyfriend for a sense of safety. Veruca got in a few jumps but just chucked afterwards, in fact, it was Charlie who was not having any fun in the attraction as he had just realized he had entered a haunted house, and if there was one thing the Good Boy hated, it was getting spooked.
Eventually, the sounds of things shaking evolved into footsteps, steps accompanied by shadows zipping across the walls within a matter of seconds, all of which raised the anxiety levels of every member of the group, especially Charlie. Ever since he was a little boy, Charlie hated getting sacred, he wouldn't linger about and listen to a scary story because he knew he would have nightmares about the subject later that night, and even now as an adult he would never watch horror movies or terrifying videos for the exact same reason. As per the nature of the attraction, the group found itself pushing forward, even if they knew the scares would only get more extreme from here on out. The group entered another hallway which led to a bedroom and mounted on the walls of the hallway were a series of portraits with the eyes of the people replaced by animatronics which seemed to follow everyone as they moved forward. If the eerie factor was not high enough, the accompanying screams coming out of nowhere would surely do the trick; everybody was on edge, but Charlie was almost ready to burst into tears when mysterious flashes of light accompanied the screams coming from the room they all seemed to be heading towards to. They room at the end of the hallway looked like a crime scene, there were red splats all over the walls and the floor below, yet there was no dummy on the floor to be the source of the blood, but at the same time the voices continued, and so did the shadows, but nothing could prepare Charlie for what came next. The rest of the group began looking around the room for the source of the noises, all the while, Charlie had an animatronic rotting corpse pop out from the side of the wall and touch him as it unleashed a blood-curdling scream right into to his ears. Everyone was startled by this, they all screamed and got jittery, but only Charlie jumped about two feet in the air and let out a high-pitched scream that rivaled even the youngest person in the group.
This was not his kind of place at all, the Good Boy instinctually grabbed onto Veruca, wrapping his long arms around hers and burring his face in her hair, all as he whimpered and cried, "Agh! No, no, I want to go home!"
As much as Veruca loved other's attention, she despised any kind that was not flattering or gave her some control over her observer; the rest of the group turned around and saw a grown man break down and huddle closer to his female companion for safety, like a frightened child would with his or her mother. And while the others looked upon Charlie, and by extension, her, with pity and humiliation, Veruca looked annoyed as ever, she had this not cool-slash-you're really doing this in public, it's just a puppet look on her face. And, while the little brute exposed her clenched jaw and looked up towards the ceiling with those blue, upturned eyes of hers, the girlfriend at the front of the line turned around to face the little brute, and proclaimed for everyone to hear, "Your boyfriend's a pussy!"
After hearing such a demeaning statement, Veruca couldn't just let it slide, so she funneled all her rage to her mouth, where she screamed, "Piss off, you bloody slag! Stop spreading lies, you don't know shit!"
At first, it seemed like Veruca was actually defending Charlie, but the bit of support the Good Boy felt at that moment soon disappeared once again as Veruca explained what she meant by all that, elaborating "He's not my boyfriend!"
Like always, any act Veruca took was to protect herself and her image, not defend her fellow Golden Ticket winner, because even she knew that Charlie was a little scaredy-cat. Although, she did offer him some words of encouragement to keep moving forward, albeit, in her typical insensitive and tone-deaf fashion, saying, "Come on, don't wuss out, Charlie! You're embarrassing me! Be a man and pull through!"
There wasn't much Charlie could say after being chastised like that; he surely didn't want to make a fool of himself, or Veruca for that matter, but the only way he could survive this attraction was to summon all the courage he had in him and keep moving forward. There were a few more hallways and rooms ahead, each of them with more noises, more shadows, more screams and more frightening animatronics popping out of nowhere and scaring people, but eventually the group reached the final hallway where light literally emanated from the end of the tunnel. And while the rest of the group exited The Mad House laughing either because of enjoyment or nervousness, Charlie emerged back into the real world clinging onto Veruca, almost appearing to take baby steps while the brat rolled her eyes at the timid boy.
"There, we're out, now let go of me!" The little brute sniped at the Good Boy, ordering him to distance himself from her after they reemerged back into public, something which he most submissively agreed to.
"Thank you, Veruca," Charlie replied as he let go of his guide through the literal horrors he hoped to put behind him forever.
Having separated himself from The Bad Nut, Charlie could now more clearly analyze what had just happened, but also inspect himself, which led him to make an embarrassing discovery, and declare, "Now, if you'll excuse me for a bit, I need to go to the loo. Preferably one with an air dryer."
Charlie headed off and returned fresh and clean as possible a few minutes later, and to make up for his embarrassing reaction, he allowed Veruca to pick out their next attraction as well, with the only stipulation being that she did not choose another horror-themed one. The little brute took up the offer without question as she undoubtedly would've complained if Charlie made a decision she did not like, and she landed on a high-speed ride with many spins, the Zipper. While Charlie didn't like to actively scare himself, he also didn't like the idea of being locked inside a metal cage and spun around at a high velocity at over a hundred feet up in the air, all in the name of fun. Seeing how the Good Boy reacted to virtually every attraction intended for his and The Bad Nut's age group, you would be forgiven for asking why he would even come to a carnival in the first place if everything scared him, and to be honest, the only reason he came along was because Veruca invited him. This was just another opportunity to spend time with her, as well as widening his horizons and experiencing more out of life, and who better to do that with than the only person he knew from outside of work whom he had met in a non-business setting.