Final Destination 3 Read online

  Wendy looked at Kevin, surprised. She’d never heard him sound so insightful, so grown up. Maybe Jason was right about his hidden depths. She never would have guessed he had the brains to think past tomorrow, let alone four years from now.

  Suddenly Kevin threw himself forward in his seat and pointed out the front window. “Dude! There it is, Red River. I can see Devil’s Flight from here. Ten times, J-dog.” He smacked Jason on the shoulder. “Ten times. You and me. ‘Till we puke!”

  “You got it, K-dog.” Said Jason. “’Till we puke.”

  They slapped hands again.

  Wendy shivered. Two red lights at its head looked like eyes. It seemed to be looking right at her.

  2

  Red River Adventure Park

  Red River Adventure Park had started many years ago as a humble fruit stand by the side of the Red River Apple Orchard. Soon, the family who owned the orchard had added a general store, then a restaurant, and then a merry-go-round, anything to lure people to come in and buy the apples, apple cider, apple pies, apple sauce and candied apples that were still the family's primary business. But in the Fifties, people started coming just for the merry-go-round, and the family realized that if they had enough rides and entertainment they could build a motel and charge people to stay overnight.

  Soon, the merry-go-round was joined by a Ferris wheel, a tilt-a-whirl, a ghost train and a roller coaster, as well as the usual midway huckster games like clown shoots, ring tosses, dart throws, string pulls and all their shady cousins.

  In the Eighties, with the advent of the super theme parks like Six Flags, Disneyland and Raging Waters, Red River lost a lot of its business. Its old, wooden boneshakers and merry mixers couldn't compete with the sleek, computer-designed thrill rides of the other parks. After a decade of steady decline, the family decided to spend the money and go head to head with the other parks by building some high tech thrill rides of their own. To give them an edge with teenage boys, the most important theme park demographic, they did their best to make their rides the scariest, most dangerous-appearing attractions in the area.

  Down came the pastel orange and turquoise flags, the paintings of flowers and apples and honeybees. Away went the cute farm animal cartoon characters that greeted families as they entered the park. Now the entrance to the ark was framed in flames and devils' heads. New rides like High Dive and Last Ride and Devil's Flight were built. Old rides like the Apple Crate Express and the Spook House were renamed Bonebreaker and Zombie Apocalypse. But new rides were expensive, and took months to build, so a lot of the old attractions were still there, and the midway still had an old time carnival feel. The ring tosses and other "games of skill" were still doing booming business in the shadow of the curving steel skeletons of the modern thrill monsters.

  Wendy and Carrie stood at the foot of one of these monsters, in the lurid orange glow of a warm spring night, the colorfully painted tarmac around them spotted with black dots of discarded chewing gum. Drifts of candy wrappers and paper cups danced and spun in the gentle evening breeze winding between the rides. Screaming, laughing high school seniors ran all around them. Almost all of them were wearing the T-shirts that read: "I survived DEVIL'S FLIGHT! McKinley High School-Class of '05-Grad Night", just like Wendy and Carrie.

  Wendy had paired her DEVIL'S FLIGHT T-shirt with simple jeans and pink low top Converse sneakers. Carrie had slashed the ribbing from the neck of her shirt, cutting it into a deep, cleavage revealing V, and then knotted the bottom tight in the small of her back so it hugged her abundant curves and tiny waist and ended just above the gaudy, dangling, crystal chandelier hanging from her navel ring. Below, she wore a skimpy pleated denim miniskirt and cork wedge heels that must have been killing her feet. The two girls could not have looked less alike if they had planned it.

  "Can you see them?" Carrie asked, squinting and straining her neck.

  "I'm looking," Wendy replied.

  Wendy looked at the image of the ride on the screen on the back of the school's brand new Sony Cyber-Shot digital camera, as the camera struggled to find something to focus on in the ever changing and uncertain light. The ride was the High Dive, a thick fifty-foot, purple column ringed by a circular gondola. There were forty seats on the bright yellow gondola, all facing out, so that the riders that sat in it looked out over the park. At the top of the column the words HIGH DIVE were picked out in rippling red, yellow and purple neon. They flashed on and off. HIGH DIVE! HIGH DIVE! HIGH DIVE!

  At the moment, the gondola was inching up the column on hydraulics, getting close to the top. Somewhere among all the people strapped into the gondola's seats were Jason and Kevin, but she was having trouble finding them. There was too much light and motion and noise. A kid in a huge, goofy jester's hat bumped her elbow as he ran by with his friends. She refocused. She still couldn't find them. Maybe they were around the other side.

  Just then she saw two hands slapping in a high five. She swung the camera back. There they were! She had them framed now-Jason and Kevin, grinning like monkeys, and looking a little more frightened than either of them would probably care to admit. The gondola was still slowly climbing.

  "There they are!" she said.

  "Where?" asked Carrie.

  "Right above us," Wendy answered. "Right in the center."

  Wendy moved her camera with the gondola, waiting for it to stop. The two boys gripped the padded shoulder restraints and looked out toward the horizon. Jason pointed at something. They were so high above her that their knees almost obscured their faces, and the flashing sign above them seemed to be coming out their heads. The gondola stopped with a sudden jolt, and Jason and Kevin's eyes widened in fear. Perfect. That was the perfect picture. She squeezed down on the shutter button, but just as she did, with a crack like gunshot, the catch that held the gondola in place released and it dropped like a stone.

  The gondola plunged down the column in freefall, silent except for the giddy screams of the riders which dopplered up in pitch in Wendy's ears as eight tons of plastic and steel raced down at her. Finally, just when it seemed impossible that it could stop in time and it would surely smash to pieces on the hard concrete at its base, hydraulic brakes engaged and slowed it to a swift but amazingly gentle stop. Relieved shouting and laughing rose over the hiss of decompressing pistons as the gondola settled into its cradle. The attendants came forward to release the restraints and help people out of their seats.

  "Did you get it?" asked Carrie.

  "I don't know," Wendy replied. "I hope so."

  Wendy fumbled at the buttons on the back of the camera, trying to retrieve the shot she had just taken. The camera was the property of the yearbook staff, and this was Wendy's first time using it. They had finally replaced the crotchety old film camera with this fancy new digital one, which was cool, but Wendy wasn't used to it yet. She hadn't completely figured out all the functions. There it was. Archives. She used the left and right arrows to flip through the pictures she'd taken so far, and squinted at the digital screen. Her face fell. The camera had gone off a second too late. The gondola had already dropped. Jason and Kevin and the other riders were just smears of color and reflection at the bottom of the frame.

  "Oh, phooey," she said.

  "Phooey?" asked Carrie, clearly amused by the G-rated mildness of Wendy's exclamation.

  "Yeah. Phooey," Wendy repeated. "I missed them. They're all blurry."

  She sighed and started to let the camera dangle from the strap around her neck when she paused and looked at the screen again, frowning. That was weird. The only thing in focus in the picture was the sign at the top of the ride. But it didn't say High Dive. The V was inexplicably unlit. It said: "HIGH DI E!" High Die. She looked up at the sign. All the letters were lit now. Well, actually, they were flashing on and off. But they were all working. The shiver she had felt earlier in Jason's Expedition, when she had first looked at the ominous shape of the roller coaster, returned to her.
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  Then she laughed. She was just being silly. The lights were probably on some kind of cycle. They probably all flashed on and off, one by one, every few minutes or so.

  Carrie tried to look over her shoulder. "What are you looking at?" she asked.

  Wendy let the camera drop, embarrassed by her silly, groundless anxiety.

  "Nothing. Nothing," Wendy said. "Just getting rid of the lame picture."

  "Woo!" Kevin cried. "That was awesome."

  "Totally fucking awesome," Jason echoed.

  Wendy looked up. Jason and Kevin were weaving toward the girls like drunk sailors, grins a mile wide plastered across their faces.

  "Express elevator to hell," Kevin said, turning to Jason and slapping him on the chest.

  "Going DOWN!" they cried in unison.

  Jason threw his arm around Wendy. "Man, I can't believe you didn't go on that," he said. "It was incredible. Whoosh! Like, my stomach came out of my mouth."

  "I told you," Wendy said, frowning. "I don't like thrill rides. Why would I want my stomach to come out my mouth? That's disgusting."

  "My lunch almost came out of my mouth," Kevin said, laughing.

  "That's even more disgusting," Carrie said. "I'm glad I stayed down here."

  "No way," Kevin said as the four friends started up midway. "It was totally intense. Haven't you ever wondered what it would be like to, like, just crash and burn like that? Go down in flames and feel your body hit the pavement at a hundred miles an hour?"

  Jason laughed, but Wendy eyed Kevin warily. He had a mildly demented look in his eyes, like he wasn't kidding. Like that was the kind of thing he thought about all the time. She made a face.

  "Uh, maybe you think about that stuff," Wendy said, "but see, the rest of us, our lives are actually going somewhere."

  Jason laughed uncomfortably. "Come on, Wendy. He's just kidding." He looked at his watch. "We gotta go to Devil's Flight. Our fast passes are for nine fifteen. If we don't make it, we gotta stand in line, like, for a day and a half. That'd kill me."

  Kevin looked at his watch. "Come on J-do, we got plenty of time. It's only eight forty-five, and I'm starving."

  He looked around at all the games of skill, until he spotted a food stall with a little roofed eating area next to it. A sign on the roof read: Deep Fried Twinkies and Snickers Bars! A look of almost religious worship came over his face. His mouth hung half open.

  "Deep… fried… Snickers…" he said, and raised his arms like a zombie in an old horror movie. "Deep… fried… Snickers…"

  "Deep fried Snickers?" asked Jason, grimacing.

  He, Carrie and Wendy followed Kevin. "Before Devil's Flight? Now that really would kill me."

  Kevin smirked. "That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger," he said.

  "You just told us you almost lost your lunch on the last ride," Carrie said. "Now you want to eat more?"

  Kevin turned to face the others as he took his place in the food line. "We said 'till we puke, right?" he said, mock punching Jason in the arm. "I just want to get the texture right before I hurl. It's an art, you know, adjusting the mix. You can't just go eating any old thing."

  "Ew, gross," Carrie squealed. "God."

  Wendy wrinkled her nose in disgust. "That's completely revolting," she said.

  Kevin put a hand on his chest and tried to look noble. "They laughed at Jackson Pollock, too," he said. "Nobody understands the soul of a tortured artist."

  Jason laughed and shook his head. "Dude, you're crazy."

  Wendy let out a little stifled giggle in spite of herself. She never in a million years would have imagined that someone like Kevin would know the artist Jackson Pollock. He must have heard about Pollock on some TV quiz show or something.

  Kevin shrugged and turned to order his deep fried monstrosity. Wendy looked over her shoulder, back at the High Dive ride. She watched it for a minute, waiting for it to cycle through its flashes, and for the V to blink out again. It didn't. She frowned. Must be a long cycle. She looked up the midway toward Devil's Flight. Live flames roared above the entrance. Two carloads of McKinley seniors screamed by, almost horizontal as the G-forces flung the cars out. They disappeared into the flames. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It looked like they had crashed and burned, just like Kevin had talked about moments before.

  "Hey, Wednesday," Jason called. "You going to order anything?"

  Wendy looked up. Jason was at the order window, looking back at her. She shrugged to shake off the sudden inexplicable tension in her shoulders and stepped forward.

  "Just a Seven-Up," she said.

  "Seven-Up?" Kevin scowled comically. "Seven-Up is clear, no texture at all."

  Carrie punched Kevin in the shoulder. "Kevin," she said. "Cut it out."

  "Ok, fine," said Wendy. "I'll have a bag of those roasted peanuts too." She smirked at Kevin. "How's that for texture?"

  "Thatta girl," Kevin said, triumphant. "And how about you, J-dog? You gonna go for the deep fried desert apocalypse?"

  "Hell no," Jason replied, patting his lean abs. "I gotta keep my girlish figure."

  "You're girlish alright," Kevin said. "No sense of culinary adventure."

  The sullen woman on the other side of the counter handed Kevin his deep fried Snickers. He waved the hot, sugary mess under Jason's nose.

  "Come to the dark side, Jaywalker," Kevin intoned, making his voice deep and wheezing in an imitation of Darth Vader.

  "Forget it," Jay said, laughing and pushing the Styrofoam plate away.

  Once they all got their respective snacks, they sat down at a plastic table in the covered seating area. There were so many McKinley High students around that the place reminded Wendy of the lunch quad. She popped a peanut out of its shell and into her mouth, and then turned towards Jason.

  Jason had ordered a shiny red candied apple on a stick as a sort of compromise between healthy and junk. The glistening, crimson orb looked far too red to Wendy, unnatural, lurid and poisonous, like the poison apple the evil witch gave to Snow White. Jason went to take a large bite, and Wendy had to stifle a sudden, powerful urge to reach out and stop him. What the hell had gotten into her anyway? Everything she saw seemed dangerous and menacing tonight. Was it because she had finally, after much hemming and hawing, agreed to get on that stupid roller coaster? Was it just her control freak anxiety messing with her? She wished that this Red River foolishness was over, that she could be alone with Jason and forget about everything else. But she had promised Mr. Smith that she would deliver enough photos for a last minute, two-page spread, and she did not want to let him down.

  She pulled the camera strap off her neck and set in on the table. She certainly did not want to take any pictures of Kevin wolfing down the deep fried Snickers. That would be far too hideous for publication. On the cheap, Styrofoam plate before him was a gooey, revolting mess of melting whipped cream and hot fudge slopped over two glistening, brown lumps of fried grease and chocolate. He scooped up a large chunk and popped it into his mouth, eyes closed and making wordless sounds of gustatory ecstasy. Beside him, Carrie had nothing but a Diet Coke, and was watching Kevin eat his deep fried Snickers with a kind of horrified fascination, as if he were eating bugs or human flesh. Her reaction was so comical that Wendy wondered if maybe she should snap a shot after all, but Kevin suddenly reached across the table and snatched the camera, grinning with chocolate webbed teeth.

  Wendy tried to grab it back, but he held it up high above her.

  "Kevin," Wendy pleaded. "Come on, give it back. It's not even my camera. It's the yearbook's."

  "Then consider me a freelance photographer," said Kevin.

  He leaned back toward a passing group of girls, holding the camera low to ground, and snapped a picture up the short skirt of a girl named Stacy Kobayashi. The pretty senior was too busy talking to her friends to notice.

  "Dude," said Jason, laughing. "Did you
get it? Let me see."

  Kevin held up the camera to check the screen, but Wendy ripped it out of his hands. She turned it around and clicked the button in his face. The flash went off right in front of his nose. He reeled back, clutching his eyes and wailing dramatically.

  "My eyes. My eyes." He waved his arms like a blind man. "I'll never see again."

  Wendy pulled the camera back, turning away to protect it from any further foolishness. She looked at the extreme close-up of Kevin on the screen, blazing white from the flash. His eyes were wide. He looked terrified, like a bomb had gone off in his face. She shivered. It was funny, she thought, how the camera could catch stuff that wasn't really there. Kevin wasn't terrified, just surprised. It was just the angle and the closeness that made him look that way.

  Carrie leaned in to her. "Um," she whispered. "Can you please delete that one of Stacy?"

  "I will, don't worry," said Wendy. "But I still haven't figured out how to do that yet. I need to check the book. I'll do it at home, okay?"

  "No," said Kevin. "Don't. Don't. You gotta keep that one."

  Wendy sniffed. "Need I remind you, yet again," she said. "These pictures are for the yearbook, not Playboy. I have to turn them in tomorrow to make the deadline, and I am not going to let Mr. Smith think I took a shot of Stacy Kobayashi's camel toe. It's not exactly yearbook material."

  Kevin and Jason exchanged a filthy look.

  "Are you kidding?" said Kevin. "I'd buy two."

  The boys laughed and poked each other, and Kevin returned to devouring his gooey, deep fried Snickers.

  Carrie leaned in again and lowered her voice. "I'm sorry, Wendy," she said. "Kevin can get so out of control sometimes."

  Wendy shrugged. "S'okay," she replied. "I gotta say though, I don't know how you put up with him. He'd drive me crazy after five minutes."