Page 27 of One Adult, Please

It's magnificent. It's enormous. It's the kind of theme park ride designed by someone who said, "What if a playground had liability insurance and delusions of empire?" It sits in a man-made lagoon that's been drained to about two feet of murky water. The ship is elevated on a platform, the deck visible above the lagoon wall.

The access ramp, a wooden gangplank themed to look like a dock, is retracted. Folded against the hull like a drawbridge.

There are supplies on the deck. Coolers. Stacked boxes. A sleeping bag draped over the ship's wheel. A clothesline strung between the mainmast and the rigging, with a T-shirt and a pair of socks drying. A stack of funnel cakes on a crate.

"Beck," I say. "How many funnel cakes do you have?"

"Define 'have.'"

"How many are on the crime boat."

He lights up. "You said it again. That's so good. I love that." He turns back to the ship, counting mentally. "On the crime boat I have maybe... twelve? Fifteen? There's a funnel cake stand on the other side of the castle courtyard. The fryers still work because they're gas-powered, not electric. I've been making them."

"You've been making funnel cakes during the apocalypse?"

"I have. Grace, I'm going to be honest with you, this is the most fun I've had in years."

Joel looks at me. I look at Joel. We have a silent conversation that goes something like: Joel's face says "he's insane," my face says "he has funnel cake," Joel's face says "that's not a qualification," my face says "it absolutely is."

"Is the funnel cake fresh?" I ask.

Beck looks at the piece in his hand, examines it, takes a bite, and chews thoughtfully, like a sommelier evaluating a vintage. "Define fresh."

"Made today."

"Then no. Yesterday."

I look at the funnel cake. The funnel cake looks back at me. It has the texture of something that was fried with confidence and has been aging with dignity. I want it with a desperation that surprises me because yesterday I was eating dolphin shortbread and today I'm negotiating the freshness parameters of unauthorized funnel cake with a man in a fish vest and this is my life now.

"I'll take some," I say.

Beck pulls a rope on the hull and the gangplank lowers with a mechanical groan, unfolding from the ship like a tongue from a wooden mouth. It hits the lagoon wall with a thud.

"Welcome to the crime boat," he says, sweeping his arm in an invitation that has theatrical energy.

I step onto the gangplank, it creaks, and my foot slides on a wet plank. I grab the rope railing, the rope railing holds, and I don't fall. That's the most functional my body has been all year.

Joel follows. His feet are steady on the planks. He looks at the ship, the rigging, the supplies, cataloging.

We stand on the deck of the crime boat. Beck's home.

Below us, the adventure part stretches out in its damaged, booby-trapped, barricaded glory. The kill chute is visible from here. The trip wires glint in the low light. The barricades form a maze.

Beck hands me a funnel cake from the crate.

It's not fresh. It's not even close to fresh. It has the consistency of sweet plywood and the powdered sugar has congealed into a paste.

I eat the entire thing.

"So," Beck says, sitting on the rail with his sharpened axe resting against his knee and powdered sugar in his hair like apocalyptic snow. "You're serious about keeping the whole park?"

"All of it," I say.

Beck's grin returns. "I'm in."

My head still hurts from where I hit myself with my own weapon. I have powdered sugar on my face and rope burn on my ankle and the memory of Joel's arms around my waist.

We have walls. We have a kill chute. We have a forge and a funnel cake fryer and a crime boat with a retractable ramp.