The Glitch Program

The park wasn’t supposed to be open yet. And yet–the lights were on. Not the bright, cheerful kind that welcomed families, music, and noise. These lights flickered, buzzed, or even hesitated like something was trying to remember how to pretend. The entrance to Circut World, Orlando Florida stood wide open, gates unmanned, the usual rush of people replaced by something far worse–. Silence.

Rhonda Hale stood just outside the turnstiles, unmoving. This wasn’t right. Even from here, she could tell. The banners hung too still. The music–normally impossible to escape–was gone.

And the air felt…wrong, like the park was holding its breath. A low mechanical hum echoed faintly from inside. Not music, not quite a ride, something else. Somewhere, deep inside Circut World–a ride had just started, without anyone there to press the button.

Rhonda stepped forward. The turnstile didn’t beep. Didn’t scan. Didn’t stop her. It just turned, like it had been waiting. The metal groaned as she passed through, too loud, too empty.

“Welcome…to…your…experience.” The voice crackled through unseen speakers–distorted, stretched thin, as if it was breaking apart.

Rhonda froze. That voice–for a second, it almost sounded familiar.

The lights flickered again. One by one, sections of the park went dark, slowly, and deliberately. She moved deeper inside. She didn’t remember deciding either. Her feet just…kept going.

Past empty streets. Past silent rides. Past places that should have been full of people–but weren’t. The hum grew louder, and louder, closer, and closer. Ahead, a ride track came into view, dark, twisted, still on the go moving along, as a rollercoaster car rushed past–empty, then another, and another. All of them were empty, and running on their own.

Rhonda’s chest tightened.

“No,” she whispered.

The ride slowed. Just for a second. Just long enough–for her to see something inside one of the cars. A figure. Still. Waiting.

Rhonda stepped closer. “Maya?”

The car jerked–then stopped. Right in front of her. The world went silent. She was at the Velociaster, of course, how could she not recognize its intense twists, turns, aggressive launches, and its super speed. This was the ride she last went on years ago, with her cousin.

The car jerked again, this time violently–then it stopped. There was no hum, no wind, nothing except the figure who she addressed as Maya, slowly, rather too slowly, lifted its head, and when it looked at her–its eyes didn’t match, one was her cousin’s–and the other one–glitched.

“Maya?” Rhonda said again, barely breathing, as she watched the figure’s lips part, causing a voice to come out, rather broken, layered, and all wrong.

“You weren’t supposed to leave,” then the figure who seemed to look similar to Maya let out a scream, causing the lights to cut out, as everything went black.

Rhonda woke up gasping. Her bedroom came back into focus with pieces–the ceiling, the faint glow of streetlight through her window, the shadows that looked into the sharp darkness.

She pushed herself up, breathing hard, one hand pressed to her chest. Her dark pixie clung messily to her face and neck, slightly wavy from sleep, as strands stuck out in every direction, creating her to have a really bad type of bedhead. She dragged a hand through it, trying to steady herself, but it only made things worse.

A few long pieces fell back into her face. She didn’t bother fixing them. Her sleeveless sports shirt clung lightly to her toned shoulders and arms. The faint definition of muscles visible under the fabric–a reminder that she moved through the world ready for anything.

Her athletic shorts hung loosely at her hips, worn and comfortable, and though her look was all tomboy, the faint smudge of mascara on her lashes caught the streetlight–proof she was still a girl, still human, still cute and complicated.

Her eyes–sharp, restless, a deep black always seemed to catch more than they should–darted toward her window, beside her twin-sized bed, viewing the early spring out there, listening and waiting for her. She’d always have that look, the same look she’d give her relatives when she was searching for more answers than she should–something they wouldn’t even notice, or embrace. From somewhere far away—she thought she had heard it. Again the same faint mechanical hum, very low, distant, and impossible.

Rhonda froze. Her black eyes narrowed slightly, rather suspicious, like a puppy dog. She sensed silence, as she leaned back against the wall, slowly exhaling, coming to terms with relief.

“It’s just a dream–” she whispered, her voice quiet, as she tried regaining control of her anxiety, as she tightened her grip on her bed’s green comforter. No such luck, the nightmare she just had, was replaying more than once inside her mind, repeatedly to the point she no longer felt convinced. It felt too vivid, to be some dark fantasy.

“Rhonda,” a gentle voice, came from the hallway, as it tapped on her door.

“Yes, what is it Cassie?”

“Are you alright?”

Rhonda sat there, for a moment to think it over, as she whipped the perspiration from her forehead as she felt her chest remaining tight, as she caught her breath. Her door opens, to reveal her little sister, dressed in a one piece pajama belonging to a Disney Princess collection.

Apparently the pajamas Cassie always wore had always been Cinderella, going perfectly with her eyes which aren’t as dark as Rhonda’s in contrast. Her eyes happen to be more, of a nice shade of blue-green, which they call in her art-class teal. Her little sister’s hair is haylow color. The kind of color that makes you believe she is someone who came out of a book Rhonda has been reading in high school. What does her English teacher say the book's name was again? Charlie St. Cloud?

Rhonda’s eyes snapped to the door. Cassie stood there, backlit by the hallway nightlight, her Cinderella pajamas looking almost too bright in the gloom of her bedroom. The sight was so normal, so sweet, it felt like a slap to the face.

“I’m fine,” Rhonda said, the words coming out too sharp. She forced her grip on the comforter to relax. “Bad dream. Go back to bed.”

Cassie didn’t move. Her teal eyes, wide and perceptive, scanned Rhonda’s face, “You were yelling, you said ‘Maya.’”

A cold trickle, separate from the sweat, traced down Rhonda’s spine. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud.

“It was just a dream, Cass,” Rhonda repeated, softer this time. “Seriously. Go back to sleep.”

“Was it about the park again?” Cassie whispered, taking a small step into the room. The floorboard creaked under her foot, a sound that seemed to echo.

Rhonda didn’t answer. She looked past her sister, out the dark window. The hum was gone–if it had ever been there at all. But the feeling wasn’t. The feeling of the park holding its breath. The feeling of being watched by something with glitching eyes.

“You haven’t acted like yourself since…you know,” Cassie said, her voice barely audible. “Since the accident with Maya.”

Accident. That’s what everyone called it. A tragic accident on the Velocicoaster. Maya, her vibrant, wild cousin, almost gone in a blur of screaming metal and torn safety harnesses. The park had been settled out of court. Life, supposedly, moved on.

Rhonda’s dream wasn’t about the accident. It was about what is coming afterwards. The empty park. The running ride. Maya…not Maya.

“It’s nothing,” Rhonda lied, swinging her legs over the wrong side of the bed. The wood floor was cool under her bare feet, “I’m gonna get some water.”

She brushed past Cassie, ignoring the worried look on her face. The hallway stretched, long and dark, toward the kitchen. As she walked, the silence of the house felt heavy, oppressive. It wasn’t the comforting quiet of a sleeping family. It was the same silence from her dream–the kind that comes before a scream.

In the kitchen, she filled a glass with tap water, her hands steady only through sheer force of will. She drank, the water doing nothing to wash away the taste of copper and fear that lingered in her mouth. She leaned against the counter, her toned arms trembling slightly from the adrenaline still coursing through her.

You weren’t supposed to leave. The words echoed in her head, in that layered, broken voice.

A soft click made her jump. The digital clock on the microwave flipped to 3:00 AM. And as it did, the faint, familiar jingle of a Circut World commercial drifted from the living room TV.

Rhonda’s blood ran cold. The TV was off. She’d made sure of it before bed. She moved slowly, silently, to the living room doorway. The room was dark, lit only by the ghostly blue glow of the television screen. It was not a commercial, but a live feed. A security camera view.

It was the entrance to Universal Studios, the turnstiles, pretty empty. The image flickered, distorted with static. For a second, she saw another figure–a girl with a dark pixie cut, wearing a sleeveless shirt and athletic shorts–standing just outside the gates. Herself.

The feed cut to another camera, the track of the Veloicoaster, a single car was stopped on the lift hill. In it, a figure sat motionless. The figure’s head turned, slowly, mechanically, toward the camera. One eye was Maya’s warm brown, the other was a pixelated, swirling void of static. The figure’s lips moved in her mind, clear as a bell in the silent house.

Come finish the ride, Rhonda. The screen went black, as she stood frozen, the empty glass slipping from her numb fingers, as it hit the carpet with a thud, rolling away. It wasn’t a dream. It had never been a dream. The park was calling her back. And she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the core, that she was going to answer.