Haunt: Volume 2

Curtis Jams on the Swans (a Curtis story)

Weekend Two - Thursday Night

September 22, 2022

POV: Seven Wonders Park

The previous weekend, Curtis received an irresistible invitation.

Come visit me beyond the swans, Curtis.

He would have. He tried to do so. Both Friday and Saturday night, he got within a hundred yards of the derelict swan boats on the edge of the farthest employee parking lot but found park security everywhere. The guards paced back and forth with their flashlight beams swinging. Their obvious patrolling attracted attention. Curtis watched as two other groups of screamsters wandered over to the guards saying, "Hey, what's going on?" or "Did we lose someone else?"

Someone else? Curtis thought. But he had not approached. Security firmly told these curious people to move along and get home.

He had a day job at Cards & Dice, a board-game specialty store in a mini-mall. He'd been their customer since he was thirteen, back when he earned enough money from shoveling snow to buy Magic: The Gathering cards. The store manager offered him a job as soon as he had a driver's license.

"You know more about our games than I do," she'd said. So Curtis enjoyed a privelege not many young men do: an incredibly fun job. He spent his happy time directing customers to table games of all types, managing the special tournaments and even promoting in their business booth at local conventions.

This week, while he'd arranged the new editions of Death in the Cul De Sac Murder Mystery Party Game, an idea sparked in his mind. He'd been rattling his plans around in his head as he worked. How could he approach the swans? To which he finally found an answer. There's nobody around on Thursdays. Plus, they won't have anyone guarding those things in the daytime.

So he took off work early on Thursday and sped over to Seven Wonders at least two hours before they expected him. This early in the afternoon, he had his choice of prime parking spots in the front lots, but he drove all the way back to J-Lot. Climbing out of his car, he heard the distant call of his favorite sound: the park's high, cheerful train whistle.

Why am I here? Because I was invited, dumbass, why else? But what am I hoping to find? Something to distinguish me from the rest? Something to impress her?

Though he labored under a terrible crush, Curtis didn't really think he had a shot with Quarisma. Even if fate somehow granted him the gift of her attention, he knew he couldn't handle a relationship with a woman like that. The only women Curtis spoke with regularly were Viv and his mom, maybe an occasional coworker. He'd be on eggshells around a Quarisma, terrified of her judgment. A board-game geek like Curtis Jams would burn to a crisp under Quarisma's blazing star. The way of the world dictated that young men like him must always have deep, unrequited crushes on beautiful girls they had no shot with.

"Except..." Working here sometimes made him think otherwise. He considered himself incompatible with someone like Quarisma unless magic happened. Nowhere else in his whole life had he been so convinced of the reality of magic than here. Sometimes, at Cards & Dice, when a role-playing group became deeply involved in their game, he could sense something close to this. Four or five imaginations coming together to create an alternate reality was its own kind of magic. But Seven Wonders was something more; he felt it in the deep, adventurous part of his heart that he kept mostly hidden away.

He simply loved Haunt. Magic was all around. He'd seen it with the street freaks, the veterans with their Fabricating, in a thousand little ways that everybody here pretended things were normal. Even if it wasn't a chance with Quarisma, he expected something like passion could spark in a place like this. Something extraordinary was bound to happen to him in this invigorating, dangerous environment. And that was why, regardless of what Adam might say, Curtis fully intended to accept the invitation from the Ouija Board.