After leaving the arcade, Ben and Gwen went on a few more park rides like the ones they'd gone on that morning, with the other couple they'd just met joining them this time. Ben especially enjoyed the ride where they stood against the walls of a circular enclosure that spun them around really fast, forcing them outwards like some sort of astronaut training thing. After that, the two couples went on another spinning ride, which had them sit in chairs that dangled from ropes high in the air and attached to the spinning wheel in the middle.
"Dude, that was sick." Ben and Randy slapped their hands together in a quick handshake when they got off the ride. "I didn't know they had one of these here."
Gwen noticed Mandy step away from them, placing her hands on a nearby fence and leaning over. "Hey, you okay?" Gwen asked, coming up next to her.
Mandy had her eyes closed, and she looked very focused on something, but she nodded her head. "Yep. Yeah, I'm good. I just need a minute." She made a noise like she was trying not to throw up.
"Oh." Gwen put a hand on her back and rubbed her gently. "Hey, guys, wait up," she said, looking over her shoulder at the boys.
"Hm? Oh, shit." Randy immediately looked worried and came to his girlfriend's side. Gwen removed her hand from Mandy's back and allowed Randy to take her place. "Sorry, I didn't realize it'd be that bad," he told her.
Mandy took a moment to respond. She waved her hand up and down in front of her throat, like she was trying to keep something down. Then she opened her eyes and chuckled nervously. "It's fine. It's not your fault." She turned around and leaned back against the fence. "I'm good now."
Randy still looked apologetic. Ben and Gwen shared a glance, each trying to come up with something to say.
"There's plenty of other kinds of rides here," Gwen pointed out.
"Yeah! What're you up for?" Ben joined in.
Mandy still looked a little awkward, but after thinking for a second, she gave an answer. "Well, I've heard the haunted house is really good this year."
Gwen furrowed her brow. "I thought you didn't like scary rides," she said, glancing over her shoulder at the ride that had just made the other girl sick.
"It's not that." Mandy shook her head. "It's just, like, the motion and stuff. Spinning around super fast like that. I normally like scary stuff, aside from that."
"It's true," Randy confirmed. "Every Halloween, she likes to binge watch horror movies. She's addicted to them."
"Cool!" Ben seemed pleased to hear that. "You ever seen The Thing? With Kurt Russel? Just saw it, like, a month ago."
"Yeah!" Mandy smiled brightly. "The effects in that movie are insane."
"It was so gross. Gwen couldn't stand it."
"Neither could Randy!"
The two of them laughed, while Gwen and Randy shared a sympathetic glance. However, Gwen realized what Ben was doing. By getting Mandy talking about something she was into, he'd managed to calm her down some more. A lot of the color had returned to her face, and she didn't look as awkward as she did before.
"Alright, well, let's check out the haunted house thing, then," Ben declared, glancing in every direction. "Anyone know where that is?"
Gwen had already pulled out her map. "It's that way."
"Lead the way, Dweeb."
The haunted house was tucked away in one of the far corners of the park. Given that it was still the afternoon and the sun was yet to go down, it didn't exactly look all that spooky from the outside quite yet, but Ben and Gwen were assured it would be better on the inside. The house itself was designed to look like a classical 'old abandoned house at the top of a hill' style of haunted house that one might see in a generic horror movie. Screams could be heard emanating from the inside of the building, and it sounded like real guests as opposed to recordings. Additionally, there were some warning signs posted at the gate that led into the area stating that young children were not permitted on the ride, along with a small novel's worth of legal disclaimers.
"I like the look of that," Ben said with a smirk, pointing to the sign.
"So, what's this ride like?" Gwen asked. "Are you in a cart taking you through it, or…?"
"It's a walk-through kind of place," Mandy explained, looking excited as they approached the building. "I read it's been completely revamped since last time I was here, so I don't know any spoilers yet."
"Sweet." Randy put his arm around her. "Let's all get spooked, then."
They had to wait in a short line before making it to the ride's entrance. Once they were at the front, they learned that they were allowed to enter solo or in pairs, but not as a group larger than two.
"Well, see you on the other side." Mandy waved to Ben and Gwen as she and her boyfriend headed into the haunted house. The park employees were staggering entrance times slightly to prevent pairs from bumping into each other, so Ben and Gwen still had to wait a couple of minutes.
"What kind of spooks do you think they have in there?" Gwen asked.
Ben scoffed. "Probably nothing half as scary as anything from the Anur system."
"Shh!" Gwen hurriedly shushed him. Nobody in line seemed to be paying any attention to them, and they probably wouldn't know what Ben was referring to, but their grandfather had always taught them it was best to pretend to be ignorant about aliens.
"Relax," Ben assured her. "I was actually just thinking about that. Like, did Mary Shelley meet a Transylian at some point?"
"Frankenstein's monster wasn't described as looking like that in the original novel," Gwen told him. "I'm impressed you know who Mary Shelley is, though."
"Hey, give me some credit. I know some things about literature and… stuff."
"Oh yeah?" Gwen smirked, immediately ready to quiz him. "Who wrote the original Dracula novel?"
"Uh… Robert Louis Stevenson?"
Gwen furrowed her brow, somewhat appalled. "Ben…"
"What?"
"Next!" One of the park employees waved Ben and Gwen along. They were allowed past the barrier and brought to the doorway that led into the haunted house. "Don't get killed in there!"
"Good advice for any ride, really," Ben said as the door shut behind them.
Suddenly, the two of them were alone in a much darker room than Gwen had anticipated, and all the background noise from outside was entirely muted. Without thinking, her hand reached for Ben's.
"Scared already?" Ben taunted.
"What? No!"
Ben laughed and strolled forward. "Relax. I bet the first room is just-"
He was cut off by something jumping out in front of him, accompanied by an extremely loud scream. Both Ben and Gwen screamed in response, leaping backwards. After a few seconds, a dim light illuminated a simple cardboard cutout of a clown, and its screams diminished into a taunting laugh.
Ben and Gwen remained huddled next to each other for a moment. Gwen's fear and alarm turned to confusion, then annoyance.
"...Well that was bullshit," Ben declared.
Gwen snorted. "Yeah. What the hell? Just a cheap jumpscare?"
"Guess we get what we paid for." Ben continued forward. Gwen could have let go of him, but she didn't, choosing instead to keep their arms around each other. As the two of them moved past the cardboard clown, they were given one more cheap scare as it sort of lunged in their direction before disappearing back through a slot in the wall.
"Freaking clowns," Gwen complained.
"I never did like Zombozo," Ben agreed. "He was, like, our most annoying nemesis."
"Don't dignify Zombozo with the title of nemesis."
Together, they proceeded into the next room. It was large, circular, and practically barren of furniture, aside from some cushioned chairs shoved against the far walls. Despite the room's size, the pair could see only a single other door on the other side. Nevertheless, they both hesitated for a moment.
"What do you think's gonna happen in this room?" Gwen asked.
"Hmm." Ben put a hand to his chin and looked upwards. "I bet the ceiling opens up, and a giant lizard monster puppet falls down.
"Ooh, that'd be good, actually," Gwen agreed, smiling at the idea. "Or maybe that door over there is locked, and once we get over there, the door we came in will lock too, and the walls will start to close in." She swung her head around looking for gears or other mechanisms that could move anything. "Well, the room's probably not the right shape for that, I guess." Gwen stepped forward, taking the lead and continuing towards the door. "C'mon."
As they walked, Ben kept his eyes firmly on the ceiling, waiting for it to open up. However, just as they crossed the center point of the room, the floor opened up instead. It slid to the sides, suddenly leaving Ben and Gwen falling through the air.
"Ahh!" they both screamed in unison, suddenly terrified.
Yet, just as before, that terror did not last long. They only ended up falling about five feet, and they landed on a padded floor that cushioned their landing. The opening above them then slowly closed back up.
"Wow. I did not see that coming," Ben said, clearly more than a little impressed.
"Piece of-" Gwen nearly swore as she climbed back to her feet and dusted herself off. "That has got to be against, like, a dozen safety codes."
Ben laughed. "That's what makes it scary!"
"Yes. Nothing scarier than state and federal regulatory violations." Gwen looked around. The new room they were in was the same size and shape as the one above it, but it was only dimly lit, and there were three different doorways to choose from. "Which way should we go?"
"This way," Ben decided, moving to the closest door.
"Why that one?"
"I didn't get to where I am today by thinking through my decisions, Gwen."
"Fair enough."
When Ben opened the door, he found only a metal grate behind it. Worse yet, a gigantic fan immediately and noisily blasted him with air, forcing him back until the door swung shut again.
"Ahh!"
"Ben!" Gwen ran to his side, but quickly realized he had not been hurt by anything.
"Jesus. Never been jumpscared by a fan before." Ben laughed awkwardly to himself, smoothing out his clothing. "Know what? Why don't you pick the next door?"
Gwen shrugged. "Sure. Let's try and hurry. I wanna see if we can catch up with Mandy and Randy." She walked around the edge of the room until she reached the next door. Having seen what happened to Ben, she stood as far back as she could and cautiously pulled the door open.
"Gwen!"
"Ahh!" Yelping in surprise, Gwen jumped away from the door and spun around.
"Heh. Just kidding." Ben stood there with a smug smile on his face, clearly pleased with himself for having scared her.
"You little shit." Gwen punched him in the arm.
"Ow." Ben punched her right back.
"Ow."
Both of them rubbed their arms, then laughed and shared a brief kiss.
"Alright. As awesome as 'making out in a haunted house' sounds, let's get the hell out of here." Ben opened the door Gwen had chosen, but opened it fully this time. There were no tricks behind it, and it led into a narrow corridor.
"Okay, okay. Let's try to guess what happens next," Gwen suggested, taking hold of Ben's hand. "I think the door at the end of the hall is going to be locked, and when we turn back around, there will be a zombie or something."
"I think some lasers are gonna come at us, and we're gonna have to dodge them. Like in Resident Evil," Ben speculated, sounding excited.
"I remember that room in the game."
"I was talking about the movie."
"Didn't the movies suck?"
"You take that back!"
Ben and Gwen both froze when they heard a noise from behind them. Slowly, they turned around. They hadn't noticed while they were talking, but all of the lights in the corridor had been turning off as they passed by, and now the stretch of the hall behind them was shrouded in darkness.
"What was that?" Gwen asked.
"What, you think I got night vision or something?" Ben squinted into the darkness, searching for the source of the noise.
As it got closer, the noise sounded more and more like footsteps, although they were slow and shuffling.
"Oookaaay, why don't we just keep going?" Gwen suggested, tugging on Ben's sleeve.
"What's the matter? Scared?" Ben asked smugly.
However, as soon as he spoke, a figure loomed into view. It appeared to be a woman dressed in white, with dark black hair spilling over her face. The woman let out a low groan.
"Yeah okay let's go." Ben grabbed Gwen's hand and yanked her along, continuing down the corridor.
When they made it to the end, they both practically slammed into the door. Gwen yanked on the doorknob, but it wouldn't turn, and the door would not open.
"Open it, Gwen!"
"It's locked!" Gwen's voice was louder than she'd intended.
I'm not scared. I'm not scared. It's just a stupid haunted house. There's no such thing as…
She suddenly felt claustrophobic, and she was irrationally afraid of the slowly-approaching ghost lady, even if the rational part of her mind knew it had to be an actor in a costume. Nonetheless, something had set off a panic instinct in her. So, in her fright, she did something she hadn't done in a while.
Taking a step back, Gwen raised her hand. A bluish glow surrounded it, and her eyes flashed the same color for a moment. An invisible force slammed against the door, snapping its lock and breaking off a few small pieces of the doorframe for good measure. Regardless of the damage, her magic had done its job, and the door swung open.
Ben's face switched from scared, to shocked, to excited. "Alright! Nice, Gwen!"
"No time." Gwen grabbed Ben's hand and pulled him through the door, then slammed it shut behind her, even though the broken door probably wasn't good for stopping anything at that point.
The next room looked like an unfinished basement, with concrete floors and lots of exposed wooden beams in the walls and ceiling. Regardless, the few hanging lightbulbs in the room were lit, so it was brighter than the corridor had been a moment ago. Gwen took a minute to catch her breath.
"Wow. I didn't think you were gonna do that anymore."
"Can we talk about it later?" Gwen requested as she calmed her nerves. "We still gotta get out of here."
"It's not like we're in any danger."
"Is that right? So you're not scared at all, Mr. Yeah-okay-let's-go?"
"I wasn't scared. I was surprised. You and I both know real ghosts are just aliens."
Gwen stared at him for a moment, then turned away and stood up straight. "Fine. Let's keep going." She took a second to examine her surroundings, noting the lack of decorations, unless the unfinished basement theme was the decoration. "Are we even supposed to be back here?" Gwen wondered aloud. "I mean, I broke the lock, so…"
Ben shrugged. "If they don't like it, they can sue us." He strode forward confidently, apparently committed to acting brave for the rest of the ride.
Gwen caught up to him and took his hand, and they walked together towards the other end of the room. Along the way, Gwen found herself constantly waving her hand near her head to break through the cobwebs in the room. "It seriously seems like we shouldn't be here."
"We do a lot of things we shouldn't be doing," Ben pointed out.
Gwen blushed and tightened her grip on his hand. "Good point…" Suddenly, she felt her other hand get stuck on something. "Ah! Shit."
"What is it?"
Gwen's right hand and wrist were tangled up in the lines of sticky, presumably faux-spider web that extended from the floor to the ceiling. "It's this damn spider web stuff," she replied, grabbing her arm with her other hand and tugging against it. "I can't get it off."
"Here, let me." Ben grabbed her arm and tugged on it.
"Ow! Quit it, Doofus!"
"Well, whaddya want me to do?"
"You-" Gwen froze. In between some of the exposed wooden pillars holding up the ceiling, she saw a pair of red eyes glowing in the darkened part of the room. Then, two more eyes lit up, then four more. At first, she thought the eyes belonged to multiple creatures, but she realized what she was looking at when two gigantic spider legs reached out from the darkness.
"Ben! Get me the fuck out of here!" Gwen shrieked, her arachnophobia kicking in instantly.
"I'm trying, I'm trying!"
Ben and Gwen both tugged against the webbing with all their might until Gwen's arm finally broke free. From there, they sprinted across the room. They found a shoddy wooden staircase at the end of it, which they quickly ran up, with Gwen nearly tripping along the way.
When she made it to the top of the stairs, Gwen didn't even bother to observe the next room she found herself in. She just kept running past the horrific noises around her and busted through the next two doors, with Ben following closely behind her.
The last door they went through took them outside of the house. The entire back side of the haunted house was lined with doors, which appeared to be different exits to the ride. A walkway connected all the exits and led back out to the rest of the park.
"Wow," Ben said, catching his breath. "That was way better than I thought it would be."
Gwen took a bit longer to recover, her panic still wearing off. "Well… I certainly didn't expect any of that."
"You think any of it was real?"
Gwen actually had to think about that. Most of it didn't seem too far outside of what one could have expected from a haunted house ride, but the giant spider sort of stuck out to her. "I… The spider part was kind of weird, wasn't it?"
"I know, right? Could be a giant alien spider. Maybe we should tell Grandpa and check it out tonight."
That didn't sound like a good idea to Gwen. They hadn't encountered any aliens yet this summer, and she'd been greatly enjoying the chance to be with Ben without any unnecessary danger. "I don't know… It was probably just a mechanical prop."
"You sure? It seemed-"
"Let's just go find Mandy and Randy." Even if Gwen were to have entertained the idea of the giant spider being an alien rather than just part of the ride, it would have been better to talk about it somewhere more private.
It didn't take long for them to find the other couple. However, as soon as Gwen spotted Mandy and Randy, she froze, and so did Ben. The other couple was further down the path leading away from the haunted house area. The two of them were actually a little bit off of the path. Mandy was leaning back against a tree, and she and her boyfriend were currently engaged in something Gwen had seen many couples do at the park that day. Nothing too vulgar since they were still in public, but the way they were kissing was definitely several notches further than what Gwen had ever done with Ben in public.
Holy shit. They're really going at it.
Gwen's face felt flushed. It took her a while to realize she was staring, but once she did, she turned her back to the other couple, embarrassed by the idea of walking up to them and interrupting. Beside her, Ben snickered. Gwen reflexively moved her hand to smack him, but she stopped herself.
"So, whaddya think?" Ben asked with a smirk. "Should we cockblock them or should we give them a moment?"
"Ben, just…" Gwen stepped off of the path in hopes that the trees would further obscure them from the other couple's line of sight. She stood with her arms crossed, staring into nothingness in the other direction.
Ben laughed. "Gwen, I get it, but they're probably waiting for us, right?"
"Ben… Do you…" Gwen felt her embarrassment growing with every word she spoke. "Do you think we could… ever…" She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. Shutting her eyes, Gwen groaned. "Forget it. Let's just-" She was cut off by Ben's lips suddenly upon hers. Her 'Oh fuck, we might get caught' alarm went off in her head for a second, but she closed her eyes again and kissed him back.
"Happy, ya little crybaby?" Ben taunted, pulling away from her with a confident smirk on his face.
Gwen laughed lightly. "You can't not ruin the moment, can you, Doofus?"
"You know you love it."
Gwen rolled her eyes, then turned around to peer through the trees. By then, Mandy and Randy had stopped going at it. "Looks like they're done," Gwen told Ben. "Let's go."
Randy spotted them first as they approached, and he raised a hand to wave at them. "Yo, guys."
"Yo." Ben waved back, and so did Gwen.
Mandy's face lit up. "Hey! You guys made it. You were in there for a while, so I guess you took one of the longer routes."
"Routes?"
Gwen had sort of figured as much. The haunted house had multiple doors in several of the rooms she'd seen, and they couldn't have all been fake. Not to mention the multiple exits at the end. "We fell through the floor, got stalked by a ghost lady, and got caught in a giant spider's web," Gwen told the other couple.
"Yo, that sounds sick," Randy remarked.
"Yeah, the giant spider sounds cool," Mandy agreed. "We got a mad scientist's lab and a werewolf cage, so it was pretty old school." She turned and pointed to a sign further down the path. "There's a map over there. You wanna pick where we go next?"
The two couples hung out for another few hours after going through the haunted house. For Mandy's sake, they avoided doing too many thrill rides, but luckily, there were plenty of things to do at the park. After that, they even got dinner together at one of the park's restaurants.
"So, you guys said you were here tomorrow, too, right?" Mandy asked as the evening was winding down, sitting across from Ben and Gwen in their booth.
"Yep," Ben confirmed with a nod.
"We're looking forward to the fireworks," Gwen added, thinking of the Fourth of July celebration she'd heard the park was putting on.
"Cool. You wanna meet up again tomorrow?" Mandy pulled out her phone as she asked. "We can hang out around the park some more, and then we can watch the fireworks in the evening."
"Sure!" Gwen was still thrilled to have randomly made friends with another couple at the park, especially since it had pushed her to be a little less reserved with Ben while in public. The fact that she and Ben had managed to stay in Mandy and Randy's good graces for this long felt like a victory to her.
Mandy smiled and held out her phone, showing it to Ben and Gwen. Her contact info was on the screen, showing her phone number and her full name, 'Mandy Glickman.' "Here's my number," she said.
Ben pulled out his phone, but Gwen hesitated.
We're sharing full names…
Alarms went off in Gwen's head. A million possible ways for this to go wrong passed through her mind in an instant. When she pulled out her own phone, she quickly checked to see if her last name was showing in her contact info.
Fuck. It is.
While Ben was adding Mandy's contact to his phone, Gwen hurriedly changed her info. She planned to simply send a text to the other girl so she could give Mandy her number without having to show her anything, but in her paranoia, she thought it better to eliminate all evidence of her being a Tennyson.
Mandy's phone buzzed. "Got it," she said, confirming she'd received a text from Ben. "I'll send it to you in a sec," she told her boyfriend while she tapped her screen. "Ben, what's your last name, by the way?"
Ben shot a sideways glance at Gwen for a moment, which at least told her he was cognizant of the situation. "Ben Tennyson," he replied truthfully.
"Sweet. Mandy Glickman. Charmed, I'm sure," she said jokingly, holding out her arm for a handshake.
"Likewise, madame," Ben replied, playing into her joke as he shook her hand.
Randy shook his hand next. "Randy Nix. A fine day to you, gentleman."
"Indubitably."
Mandy finished sending Ben's info to Randy, who in turn sent his to Ben. Gwen also finished sending a text to Mandy so she'd have her number as well.
"Got yours, Gwen," the other girl said. "And who might this gorgeous young lady be?" she asked, slipping back into her faux-high class voice to request a name to add to her contact list.
Gwen smiled, hoping to hide her nervousness. "Gwen McCullough," she replied, shaking Mandy's hand. "A great pleasure to meet you, your illustriousness."
Ben raised an eyebrow.
"Oh." Mandy grinned and fluffed her hair, turning to Randy. "Darling, when was the last time you commented on my illustriousness?"
"Hey, I can't be expected to know every big word out there."
Mandy giggled and turned back to the other couple. "So, we'll be in touch tomorrow morning?" she asked for confirmation.
"For sure." Ben nodded.
"Great!" Mandy stood up and waved goodbye, waggling her fingers as she did. "Buh-bye!"
"See ya, guys," Randy joined in.
"See ya."
"Good night!" Gwen waved back as the other couple walked away. Once they were out of sight, she released a breath she felt like she'd been holding in for forever, falling back into her booth.
"Your mom's name, huh?" Ben commented, having noticed that she'd adopted her mother's maiden name.
"Shh!" Gwen shushed him. "I mean, it makes sense, right?" She slid out of the booth and stood up, waiting for Ben to join her. "Let's just head back to the Rust Bucket," she said, intentionally avoiding saying 'Let's head back to Grandpa.'
"Whatever you say, Ms. McCullough."