Decapitator 2.0

Decapitator 2.0
“Now, we sharpen and slice on every pass.”
999 words

         Even on his tiptoes, seven-year-old Nate wasn’t tall enough to ride The Red Rooster.
         “Maybe one day.” Grandpa hugged Nate, “Here I go,” and entered the rollercoaster’s pavilion through a turnstile.
         “I’ll miss you Grandpa.”
         Grandpa limped through a maze of ropes and up to crowd gathering on the coaster’s loading platform. A wet, empty train rolled into the station and squeaked to a stop.
         “Step forward and enter the seat in front of you,” Carl spoke into a microphone.
         Grandpa boarded.
         Carl lowered the safety bar over a fat man, but the man’s belly prevented it from latching. Carl stepped on the bar, squatted, jumped, and landed. The bar slammed shut squashing the fat man’s belly against his knees causing him to yelp and thrash about.
         “Shut-up, lard-ass.” Carl hopped back to the platform.
         Carl lowered the restraint bar over a teenage girl. “I hope that text message was worth it.”
         The flash of a cigarette lighter caught Carl’s attention. He turned and jogged up the platform. “Lady! No smoking on this ride.”
         The woman puckered her lips around her cigarette and the tip of her addiction glowed bright.
         “Didn’t you see the signs?”
         She blew her smoke at Carl. “I saw ‘em…Hell, I even read ‘em.”
         Carl walked the platform checking each restraint. As he tugged on Grandpa’s, he said, “Cancer keeps you skinny and my job easier.”
         Grandpa snatched Carl’s wrist. “I’ve carried a Nazi bullet in my gut for seventy years. The least you could do is treat us with respect.”
         Carl yanked his hand back. “Minimum wage means I don’t have to.”
         Carl nodded to an attendant in the control room. She pressed a button and the train eased out of the pavilion. As it clanked up the big incline, some guests shook, some prayed, some writhed in pain, and some held up their arms.

         As Nate peered at the tracks through a chain-link fence, a man wearing a tuxedo approached him. “Friend or relative?”
         “My grandpa.”
         “Well now, we have a very special place for grandchildren to watch.”
         Tuxedo-man led Nate along a path that ended at a crowded bleacher that overlooked the coaster’s final drop.
         Tuxedo-man stood between the tracks and the bleachers. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world’s most exhilarating rollercoaster—The Reeeeeeeeeeeeed ROOSTER!” He pointed at the crowd. “She’ll tingle your insides, chatter your teeth, rattle your bones, and make you beg for mercy.”
         A woman raised her hand and pointed to a wedge shaped steel blade that hung low across the track. “What’s that?”
         “You, my lady, are quiet observant,” Tuxedo-man said. “That’s a marvel of modern engineering—The Decapitator 2.0.”
         “It’s just a big razor blade.”
         “Oh no, no, no. At seventy miles an hour, bone would dull an ordinary blade. This decapitator is a laser sharp, space-age alloy.” He scanned the crowd. “You see, the old blade would dull such that we did more tearing than slicing. Once, in ’89, near the end of the day, the train stalled halfway through a slice…damn blade stuck right in the middle of a guy’s gut. Hell of a mess.”
         “What did you do?” The woman said.
         “We hired the world’s best engineer and he gave us The Decapitator 2.0. Our trains even have a sharpening stone on their leading edge. Now, we sharpen and slice on every pass.”
         “No, what did you do about the riders that didn’t get sliced…the people riding behind the guy?”
         “They were screaming and carrying on such that Management sent someone out to whack ‘em with a mallet.”

         As the coaster crested the first hill, Grandpa held up his hands.

         “Do they know what’s coming?” A man in the bleachers asked.
         “That, my friend, is what makes The Rooster the most exciting ride in the universe.” Tuxedo-man pointed at the peak of the last hill. “As she slowly rolls over, our guests get a good, long view of The Decapitator...and if that doesn’t scare the wits out of ‘em,” he winked, “we’ve written a message across the top of it.”
         “Message?”
         “I don’t know what it says, but you’ll see their expressions change the instant they read it.”

         The coaster accelerated through its first drop and screams shifted by the Doppler Effect filled the park.

         Nate raised his hand. “Does it hurt?”
         “How the hell should I know?”

         As the coaster flew over the second hill, Grandpa held a full-faced smile.

         “Has anyone ever made it through alive?”
         “No,” Tuxedo-man said.

         The train flew around a sharp curve that wound into a spiral. It shot up a steep incline, then down into a tunnel. Grandpa kept his hands up as The Rooster flew out of the tunnel, galloped over four bunny hills, and rumbled into a sharp curve.

         Tears formed in Nate’s eyes. A young girl slid next to him and patted his shoulder. “It’s okay, your grandpa’s happy now.”

         The coaster slowed as it climbed the final hill. When it crested and The Decapitator came into Grandpa’s view, he dropped his hands. When he read the words painted across the top of the blade, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open.

         “Ladies and Gentlemen," Tuxedo-man hollered, "The Rooster is about to Crow!”

         The Rooster roared past the bleachers. The Decapitator caught its passengers just below their ribs. The wedged blade sent heads with torsos twenty feet above the tracks.
         “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” Tuxedo-man cackled then waited for parts to settle. “People, please exit to your left.”

         The coaster rounded a curve then slowed to a stop on a straightaway. A section of track slowly rotated the train upside down. Intestines unfurled and swung in the breeze and blue veined organs fell from their holds to a growing pyramid of guts. The train’s safety bars released with a loud mechanical pop and abdomens and legs fell to a pile, landing with a wet slap. The Rooster rotated upright, eased down the track through rings of high-pressure water jets, and rolled back into the station.