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"It will be fun, trust me!"
Fun.
Manfred had come to dread the word.
In the years that he'd now worked with Gant, it had been an exceedingly rare occasion for it to actually mean an enjoyable way of spending his time. What it promised instead ranged from a complete waste of his time to sheer terror, with the dice of fate deciding where between the two extremes the day would land.
But Gant had made it sound harmless enough this time: a tour of Gourd Park. An odd name, Manfred thought, but likely connected to Gourd Lake—a place he hadn't been to, but which he knew to be surrounded by a deep forest. Was that the park? It had been years since he had last gone on a walk in nature, all the way back in Germany, and as much as he hated the thought of even briefly parting from his duties as a prosecutor—who cared that it was the weekend? Lazy people, like Gant, but a von Karma always had work to do—he knew that for the sake of preserving his perfect hearing, if nothing else, he could use an opportunity to escape the cacophony of sirens, shouts and car alarms that made up Downtown Los Angeles. That Gant would also be there was a shame. Ignoring him was impossible—Manfred had tried often enough. But there was, at the very least, the chance that the brush of crisp morning air on his skin and the smell of dew on forest earth would make him easier to tolerate.
It turned out Manfred had been right about two things. That Gourd Park was in the proximity of Gourd Lake, although it wasn't the forest—that was Gourd Lake Nature Park.
And that fun, when promised by Damon Gant, meant bad things.
He’d never listen to him again. This was it. No matter how innocent Gant would make his plans sound, he wouldn't fall for it. Because he'd learned his lesson—or because this roller coaster would put an end to his misery once and for all. One way or another, this was the last time he'd regret trusting this orange devil.
Something about that thought wasn’t quite as reassuring as he would’ve liked.
As the coaster car crawled up the tracks, as his nails dug deep into the cushioned safety bar and as a cheerful Gant—pressed up right against him in the tiny car—babbled on about something Manfred couldn’t hear over the ear-grating cheers from the passengers in the other cars and the creaks and squeaks of the machinery, he wondered why in the world amusement parks were called parks. Where were the trees?
Ah—he could see them now. The woods of Gourd Lake Nature Park, a long distance off—and very far below.
Today, the dice had chosen terror.