“—and this is where it happened,” one of them says, panning his phone across the scene. “A bunch of people died here two days ago.”
“Look,” Sawyer taps my arm, pointing.
I follow the direction of her finger and see what she does. A shrine.
Near the cordoned off entrance to Velocity, people have started building a memorial. Teddy bears pile on top of eachother, some new and plush, others worn like they came from someone’s childhood. Flowers, mostly wilted now in the June heat, lean against the metal barriers. Photos of the victims are taped to poster boards, their smiling faces frozen in time. Handwritten notes on notebook paper flutter in the breeze.We’ll never forget you. Gone too soon. Rest in peace, angels.
There are dozens of candles, the wax melted and hardened into globular pools on the concrete. Someone left a heart-shaped balloon bouquet, the foil catching the sunlight.
And right in the center is Owen’s senior portrait. The one mom loves because it shows off his perfect smile.
I feel sick to my stomach.
Then I look up. Behind the memorial is the ride itself, or what’s left of it. They’ve cleaned up most of the debris but there are still marks. Dark stains on the concrete that bring bile up to my throat.
The loading platform sits empty. No operators, no maintenance crew, no security. It’s shocking that they’ve deserted it like this.
I press my palms against my eyes and can picture it so clearly. Owen running up the metal stairs after us. The moment the ride lurched. The screaming. The way everything went silent after.
“Knox.” Sawyer’s voice pulls me back. She’s staring at the memorial too, her face pale. “I can’t…I don’t know if I can do this.”
I grab her hand without thinking. Her fingers are ice cold.
One of the teenagers notices us and nudges his friend. Oh fuck. Within seconds, all four of them have their phones pointed our way.
“Holy shit, is that them?”
“The survivors?”
“Bro, get your phone out.”
Their screens glare at us like a dozen unblinking eyes.
“We need to move,” I mutter to Sawyer, pulling her closer. “Now.”
But we’re trapped between the memorial and the gawkers. More people are starting to notice, a ripple effect spreading through the crowd. I hear fragments of whispers, all coming at once.
“That’s the brother…”
“The one who died…”
“…she was his girlfriend, I saw it on the news…”
A middle-aged man walks past, not even trying to lower his voice as he says to his wife, “Taking photos at a memorial. No respect for the dead.”
Sawyer flinches and steps closer to me.
“Fuck this,” I say, and pull her toward the caution tape, ignoring the phones, ignoring the stares, ignoring everything except getting her away from these bloodsuckers.
I duck under the tape, then hold it up for her to follow. She stares at it like it’s a wall of solid stone. Her breathing picks up again, fast and shallow.
“Hey,” I say. “We don’t have to do this.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “I need my phone. I need…I need to do this.”
She hesitates for one more second, glancing back at the shrine and the people watching us. Any second now, someone will alert park security that we’re where we shouldn’t be, but I don’t give a shit. Fuck them all.
Finally, she ducks under and we’re back inside the empty queue where it all started.
