Kirby's Inferno
Wilfred Kirby strolled past the closed concession stands and the silent, motionless rides as he made his way toward the Rocket. He always found it lonely and more than a little disconcerting to be in Kirby Park late at night when the place was dark and deserted. An amusement park was meant to be alive with bright lights, loud music, and laughing, thrill-seeking patrons. As Wilfred stopped and gazed up at the lofty first hill of the old wooden roller coaster, he wondered whether this might be the last year Kirby Park was open for business—whether, in fact, it would pull in enough revenue to enable him to hold on until the end of the season.
Kirby Park first opened in the summer of 1907 and had been in the Kirby family for four generations. Over the decades that followed, both Wilfred's grandfather and his father enlarged the original amusement park by constructing additional attractions, more rides, and a greater variety of shows and games of chance, but by the time Kirby Park passed into Wilfred's hands, the days of the old-fashioned, independently run amusement parks were coming to an end, and large corporations such as Cedar Fair, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Six Flags and Busch Gardens were opening giant theme parks across the country.
Despite the fierce competition, Wilfred somehow managed to delay the inevitable death knell, no doubt due to the poor economic status of the families that patronized his business. Kirby Park was located in a rural Pennsylvania area, where the residents living in the surrounding communities were mostly small, independent farmers and low-paid manual laborers and retail workers who could not afford the expensive ticket prices and ancillary expenses connected with a visit to a major theme park. Wilfred catered to these lower-middle-class families, and unlike his corporate-owned competitors, he charged no admission fee. Parking was free, and the ride tickets and arcade games were reasonably priced. Also, the food at the park was both inexpensive and good tasting—an unheard-of combination in the entertainment resort industry.
However, the cost of maintaining and insuring an amusement park grew steadily over the years, and Wilfred was eventually forced to raise his prices. True, it was still much cheaper to spend a day at Kirby Park than at Allentown's Dorney Park or New Jersey's Six Flags Great Adventure, but the large theme parks had one major advantage over Kirby's dollar-friendly establishment: they had vast sums of money to invest in state-of-the-art thrill rides, which pulled in paying customers by the tens of thousands. Where Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, offered the three-hundred-and-ten-foot-high Millennium Force steel roller coaster that reached a top speed of ninety-two miles per hour, Kirby Park's Rocket, a seventy-eight-foot-high wooden roller coaster that had been built in 1948 and reached a maximum speed of only forty-five miles an hour, paled by comparison.
Wilfred ascended the incline to the top of the Rocket's raised loading platform and gazed lovingly out over his dying empire: at the red-bonneted Tilt-a-whirl, the Whip, the Ferris wheel, the bumper cars, the Octopus, the Scrambler, the fun house, the Himalaya and the antique German carousel. All these rides were still fun, but they did not draw big crowds to the park. Many of these same rides could be found at local charity-sponsored fairs and carnivals.
With a heavy heart and a sense of foreboding, he walked slowly down the exit ramp and back to the administration building.
What the ...? he wondered, surprised at the sight of a strange man wearing an expensive business suit and carrying a Gucci briefcase who was waiting outside his office.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"Mr. Kirby?" the man inquired, not bothering to answer the question.
"I'm Wilfred Kirby. What can I do for you?"
"My name is Bertrand," the stranger said, handing Wilfred his business card. "I represent a client who has got an eye on your amusement park."
Too tired to think about selling his birthright after having put in a fourteen-hour workday, Wilfred gave Mr. Bertrand his card back.
"Thanks, but tell your client that I'm not interested."
"Excuse me for being blunt, Mr. Kirby, but I have it on good authority that your amusement park is losing money and that it probably won't survive another season."
"That may very well be true," Wilfred sadly concurred. "I know I should sell out to Cedar Fair or Six Flags like the original owners of Knott's Berry Farm, Dorney Park and Great Adventure did. God knows I don't want to see this place disappear like Palisades Park! Call me a sentimental old fool, but I just can't bring myself to sell it. It's been in my family for close to a century."
"Who said anything about selling it?" Bertrand asked, the corner of his mouth curling into a smile. "My client wants only to make a capital investment in your business. He has no desire to take part in the day-to-day management of Kirby Park. That will be your sole responsibility."
Feeling pessimistic, Wilfred shook his head.
"I honestly doubt a few more dollars will help much."
"I'm not talking about a few dollars. I'm talking about a substantial investment that would turn this place around."
* * *
After the contracts were signed, Wilfred Kirby and his new partner's representative, Milton Bertrand, met with award-winning engineer Suzanne Turner to discuss proposed improvements to Kirby Park. Miss Turner worked for one of the most successful amusement ride design firms in the world and had previously designed major attractions at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, Six Flags Magic Mountain, Disney World's Magic Kingdom and Universal Studios Orlando.
After the introductions were made, Suzanne unfolded a large architectural drawing, spread it open on Wilfred's seldom-used conference table and addressed the two men.
"I've determined that the least expensive way to expand Kirby Park would be to take out the picnic grounds—which bring in no revenue—and the current employee parking lot and add two new sections. Here would be a good location for Neptune's water park," the engineer suggested, pointing to a large open tract of land on the blueprint, just to the right of the main gates.
"Water park?" Wilfred echoed.
"Yes, Mr. Kirby. Water rides play a crucial part in the financial success of a modern amusement park. If you group them together in one designated area, you will have the advantage of being able to close that section in the early spring and the fall, thus reducing the insurance premiums and operating costs during those months."
"That sounds like an excellent idea to me," the lawyer commented, and Wilfred readily agreed with him.
Suzanne unfolded a second drawing and placed it on the table.
"This is a preliminary layout of the proposed water park."
Wilfred studied the detailed map, which showed the placement of two flume rides, water rapids, a wave pool, a tube ride that meandered around the perimeter of the water park section, a kiddy pool, three water slides and the usual assortment of food stands and souvenir shops.
"Very nice, indeed!"
Suzanne unrolled a third blueprint and laid it on the table.
"And here is where the big money will be spent and made, gentlemen. This is where we'll place the state-of-the-art thrill rides: the roller coasters and the free-fall ride. This new section will be called Dante's Inferno."
Wilfred frowned.
"I'm not sure I like that choice of name. I would prefer something more family-friendly, more fun-sounding like Adventure Land."
"I'm afraid I must disagree with you. I suggest you take a look at the names of your competitors' rides, Mr. Kirby. Some are named after mythological creatures: Goliath, Colossus, Medusa and Hercules. Then there are the snake and insect names such as Python, Scorpion, Black Widow, Anaconda, Mantis and Viper. You have animal names like Great Bear, Wildcat, Grizzly, Jaguar, The Beast and Big Bad Wolf. The names of the rides themselves have to suggest either danger like the Cyclone, Chaos, Disaster Transport, Hurricane, Vortex, Avalanche and Shockwave, or fear, like Skull Mountain, Acrophobia, Flight of Fear and the Great American Scream Machine."
Milton Bertrand smiled and tactfully suggested, "Miss Turner seems to know her business. We ought to listen to her advice."
Wilfred reluctantly agreed.
"Okay, but what rides are we going to include in this Dante's Inferno?"
"First, we have Purgatory, which is a compressed-air-launched, enclosed coaster that shoots its riders through the bowels of the earth."
Wilfred chuckled like a schoolboy.
"Things sure have changed a lot since the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway first opened in Coney Island back in 1884. That ride had only a forty-five-foot-tall tower and reached a maximum speed of six miles an hour."
"Sounds like a kiddy ride by today's standards," Bertrand laughed.
"Limbo," Miss Turner continued, pointing to the next ride, "will be a sixty-mile-per-hour, steel inverted coaster with a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree flat roll. Next to it is the Primeval, a stand-up coaster. Then we have Charon's Ferry, a four-hundred-and-twenty-five-foot-high, one-hundred-mile-per-hour mega coaster, which will be the tallest and fastest coaster in the world."
"Until someone designs a taller or faster one," Wilfred added with a smile.
"How true!" Ms. Turner laughed. "Be that as it may, our next ride is the Demon, a one-hundred-and-sixty-foot-high, seventy-five-mile-per-hour wooden coaster. Cerberus, named after the three-headed dog in Dante's epic tale, is a triple-loop corkscrew coaster. Finally, there is Hecate and Hades, a ninety-foot-high wooden, dual-track racing coaster."
Wilfred looked at the ride drawn in the center of the Dante's Inferno map.
"What's this one, a free-fall ride?"
"Not just any free-fall ride, Mr. Kirby. This is Damnation Drop. Most of the existing free-fall rides around the country have four two-hundred-foot towers, with cars that either skyrocket you up or drop you down. Your ride will have six towers, each one three hundred feet high, two hundred above ground and one hundred below."
"Below the ground?"
"Yes. That's what will make Damnation Drop unique. Passengers enter the ride on a retractable platform. As they ascend the two hundred feet to the top of the tower, the platform will slide open. There's a one-hundred-foot pit below the platform, which will be adorned with robotic demons and flaming fires—artificial ones, of course. After all, we wouldn't want to incinerate any of the riders."
"Well done, Miss Turner! You certainly have a good imagination," Wilfred said appreciatively. "I think this planned expansion is just what Kirby Park needs. Do you suppose your client will agree to finance all these proposed improvements, Mr. Bertrand?"
"Agree?" Bertrand replied with a grin. "I think he'll insist upon them!"
* * *
"What do you think, Robbie?" a proud Wilfred Kirby asked his teenage son on the opening day of Dante's Inferno.
"This is awesome, Dad! It's even better than Wet 'n Wild World. But ...."
"What is it, son?"
"Do I have to wait in all these long lines to ride the coasters?"
Wilfred laughed.
"I guess we can have one of the park employees give you the V.I.P. treatment. You are a Kirby, after all, and, hopefully, someday all of this will belong to you."
As Robbie went off toward Charon's Ferry with one of the ride attendants, Wilfred made his way through the crowds to the main gate to meet with several photographers and members of the press. While he was giving an interview to a reporter from Roller Coaster magazine, the amusement park owner spotted a late model Rolls Royce Phantom with dark-tinted windows driving through the employee's entrance.
I wonder who that could be, he thought.
When the Rolls came to a stop, a uniformed chauffeur got out from the driver's seat and opened the rear door behind him. Out of the car stepped Milton Bertrand.
"Excuse me, please," Wilfred said to the reporters and headed toward his partner's lawyer. "Did you come to see how things are going on Dante's opening day? I guess you can tell from the parking lot that the place is packed."
"Very good. Very good, indeed."
"Come on, I'll show you around."
"Actually, my client, your silent partner, came here to get a look at his investment."
"Great! I finally get to meet him. I'll give you both a guided tour."
"I'm afraid that's not possible. Mr. Blackman has difficulty getting around. He's—what's the politically correct phrase they use these days?—physically challenged."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know that."
"That's why I handle most of his business dealings. He's self-conscious about his disability and rarely ventures out in public."
"Perhaps he would prefer to drive through the park by way of the service road. I can call the security guard at the gate and tell him to let you pass. There's an excellent view of Dante's Inferno from the warehouse driveway."
"Thank you, Mr. Kirby. That will be greatly appreciated."
* * *
"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the latest addition to Kirby Park: Dante's Inferno," Wilfred announced as he gave the members of the press their promised guided tour. "Detailed descriptions of all these rides can be found in the press kits you were issued at the main gate."
As the owner pointed out the various new thrill rides, he spotted Milton Bertrand walking in the crowd. With him was a man Wilfred assumed was the mysterious Mr. Blackman, for the man dragged his left leg as he walked. By the way Bertrand had talked, Kirby assumed that his partner was confined to a wheelchair. Before Wilfred had the opportunity to walk over and introduce himself, however, the two men disappeared into the throng of people in front of Damnation Drop.
"And here we have Charon's Ferry," Wilfred said, continuing his tour, "the largest and fastest roller coaster in the world—today, at least. Tomorrow? Who knows?"
The reporters and photographers laughed as though on cue.
"With a height of four hundred and twenty-five feet, Charon's Ferry is definitely not a ride for someone afraid of heights. Neither is our next attraction. Damnation Drop is the only ride of its kind in the world."
Wilfred spotted Blackman and his attorney waiting in the long line to board Damnation Drop. Why hadn't Bertrand told him they wanted to go on the ride? He would have gotten them right on. Hell, with all the money Mr. Blackman had invested in the place, Wilfred would have opened the entire park just for him.
The press tour came to an end with Wilfred Kirby handing out free one-day passes to the reporters and photographers. Afterward, he headed up the exit ramp of Damnation Drop, hoping to catch Mr. Blackman and his lawyer when they got off the ride. As he approached the control booth, Wilfred saw the two men just boarding a car on tower number three. The car began its ascent, and Wilfred saw Mr. Blackman's left leg dangling in the air above him. At two hundred feet in the air, the car came to a stop and waited for thirty seconds to build up the anticipation of the riders. Then the car began to fall, and the passengers screamed with excitement and fear. In a matter of seconds, it plummeted into the underground pit. Finally, the car reappeared, and the platform slid back into place. The ride was over, but Mr. Blackman and Milton Bertrand were nowhere to be seen.
Wilfred Kirby had the ride stopped. Then he and the maintenance crew searched the one-hundred-foot-deep pit, but there was no sign of the two men. Wilfred then had one of his assistants page both men's names over the park's loudspeakers several times. No one responded. A search for the Rolls Royce also proved fruitless.
Later that night Wilfred told his wife about the mysterious disappearance.
"Maybe it wasn't them you saw get on the ride," his wife reasoned. "You told me you never had the chance to meet this Mr. Blackman, so how can you be so sure it was him?"
"Okay, maybe it wasn't Mr. Blackman I saw," Wilfred conceded, "or Milton Bertrand either, for that matter. Let's suppose, just for argument's sake, that I saw two strangers get on the ride."
"Okay."
"I saw two people sitting in seat numbers five and six of the car on tower three when the ride ascended. They were still in those seats two hundred feet up in the air. I know that for a fact because I saw their feet from below. Yet when the ride ended, they were gone. Where did they go?"
It was a question for which Mary Ellen Kirby had no answer and one that was to plague her husband for years to come.
When Wilfred arrived at his office the following morning, he instructed his secretary to place a call to Milton Bertrand's office.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kirby," she said several minutes later. "I can't find a number for that name in the directory."
"Check the file then, will you? Bertrand is the lawyer who handled the contracts for the expansion of the park. His number must appear somewhere on his letterhead."
Nearly an hour later the secretary returned to his office.
"Wait until you hear this," she said with a puzzled look on her face. "There was no phone number on the lawyer's letterhead, and the address given is actually one for a dry cleaning business. So, I checked out the other information on the contracts. I can't find any record of either a Mr. Jonathan Blackman or JSB Investments. When I contacted our bank, I learned that the money for the expansion was transferred to Kirby Park's account from a private, unidentified Swiss bank account."
* * *
More than a dozen times over the next five years Wilfred thought he spotted Mr. Jonathan Blackman in the crowds at Dante's Inferno. Sometimes he was with Milton Bertrand; sometimes he was alone. Always, however, he disappeared into the crowd before Wilfred could reach him.
Then, not long after Dante's Inferno celebrated its fifth anniversary, Wilfred Kirby finally came face to face with his mysterious silent partner.
It was late September, and Kirby Park was operating on its autumn schedule: open weekends only from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Wilfred left the park shortly before 8:30. His wife and son were at a high school football game and would be getting home at about the same time as he did. On impulse, Wilfred decided to spare his wife the burden of cooking dinner and stop at the Pizza Palace to get a couple of pies, but when he reached into his pocket, he discovered his wallet was gone.
After telling the waitress at the Pizza Palace to hold off putting the pizza in the oven until he returned, Wilfred got into his car and headed back to the amusement park. The nighttime security guard opened the gate for him, and he drove up the hill to the warehouse, the last place he remembered having his wallet. He had taken it out of his pants pocket to buy a can of Coke from the vending machine.
Dante's Inferno, which would remain closed until the following Saturday, was silent and dark. As he walked toward the warehouse, a strange light caught his attention. An eerie red glow was coming from the pit below Damnation Drop.
Fire! Wilfred thought with sudden panic.
As he ran down the hill, he heard a motor start. Adrenalin pumping, Wilfred raced toward Damnation Drop. He approached the free-fall ride, just as the platform retracted and the empty car on tower three descended into the pit.
A relieved Wilfred stood at the top of the exit ramp, trying to catch his breath. It hadn't been a real fire, he realized. It was only the man-made red and orange lights flickering from the hellish panorama in the pit below. As he reached for the emergency phone to speak to the maintenance man on duty, the car on tower three emerged from the pit. Wilfred dropped the phone's receiver on the ground when he saw Jonathan Blackman sitting in seat six. Dumbfounded, he remained there motionless, staring, open-mouthed, as the platform slid into place and his silent partner got off the ride.
"Good evening, Mr. Kirby," Blackman said with an odd, unfamiliar accent. "We meet at long last, I see."
Many questions flooded Wilfred's mind, all demanding immediate answers.
Finally, he asked, "How did you get in here?"
Blackman laughed.
"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."
"Try me," Kirby said.
Blackman seemed to take offense at Wilfred's command.
"Are you forgetting that I was the one who paid for this place?"
"Your investment is paying off. This summer alone ...."
"I'm not interested in the money."
Now we're getting to the heart of the matter, Wilfred thought.
"Then why did you send Bertrand to me with the offer?"
"For the same reason Bertrand sent you to Suzanne Turner to design the rides and then to Clinton Construction to build them. These people all work for me."
"I was afraid of that. You're in the Mafia, aren't you?"
"You amuse me, Mr. Kirby."
When his laughter subsided, Blackman pointed to the rides.
"If you want an answer, all you have to do is open your eyes and look around you. As Shakespeare's Juliet asked, 'What is in a name?' In this case, a lot. Hades was the king of the underworld, and Hecate was his queen. Purgatory is a temporary place where penitent souls are sent. Charon's Ferry conveyed the souls of the dead to the netherworld. Cerberus, a dog-like monster with three heads that Dante encounters in the Third Circle of Hell."
Wilfred shook his head in confusion.
"You still don't get it, do you? Damnation Drop is more than a ride; it's a doorway to the netherworld."
"That's not true. Millions of people have ridden that ride, and nothing has happened to them."
"Think of it as a locked door. One must have a key to enter. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business here on earth."
Blackman turned and slowly walked away, dragging his cloven hoof behind him.
As Wilfred Kirby watched in silence, Lucifer got into the back seat of the Rolls Royce Phantom that had driven up the service road while the two men were talking. Then the car drove off, and Wilfred turned and stared at the pride of Dante's Inferno, Damnation Drop: on the surface, a three-hundred-foot-high free-fall ride, but in reality a gateway to Hell.
I'd hardly call your skateboard a thrill ride, Salem.
