by Dean Koontz
Richie's blood.
Amy screamed.
15
AS SOON as Conrad switched off the power to the tracks, stranding the carload of teenagers, he went down the boarding ramp toward the midway. He intended to walk around to the back of the funhouse, enter by the rear basement door, lock it after him, and locate Gunther. He wanted his son to kill three of those kids, but not Amy Harper. Amy, of course, would have to suffer for several days before she died, she would have to be well used, perhaps by both himself and Gunther, that was the way Conrad wanted it, the way he had dreamed of it for twenty-five years. He had instructed Gunther carefully, but he wasn't sure that Gunther would be able to control himself once the killing began. Gunther needed to be reminded, he needed constant guidance through the next critical hour.
But when Conrad reached the bottom of the ramp, as he was about to head for the walkway between the funhouse and Freak-o-rama, he saw the boy. Joey Harper. Amy's little brother was standing over by the second set of castle doors, through which the gondolas exited the funhouse.
He must have seen his sister go inside, Conrad thought. He's waiting for her. When she doesn't come out, what will he do? Go for help? Seek out a security guard?
Joey glanced at him.
Conrad smiled and waved.
He would have to do something about the damned boy, and quick.
* * *
Buzz climbed onto the ledge where the ax-murderer display was bathed in green light, and he pulled the ax out of the skull of the mannequin that was crumpled at the foot of the mechanical madman. Ax in hand, he jumped down into the gondola channel, where Amy and Liz were huddled together, waiting for him.
“It's a real ax,” he said. “Not very sharp, but it ought to be of some use.”
“I just don't understand,” Liz said shakily. “What is going on here? What the fuck is this all about?”
“I don't know for sure,” Buzz said. “I can only guess. But you saw that hand . . .”
“It wasn't a hand,” Liz said.
“Claw, paw, whatever you want to call it,” Buzz said. “Anyway, it was just like the hands on the thing in the jar, that dead freak we saw pickled in formaldehyde over at Freak-o-rama. Only this hand was a lot bigger.”
Amy had to make an effort to speak. She was surprised she could talk at all. “You mean . . . you think we're trapped in here with a freak that kills people?”
“Yeah,” Buzz said.
“It didn't kill Richie!” Liz said, her voice cracking. “Richie isn't dead. He's alive. He's . . . somewhere . . . and he's alive.”
“It's possible,” Buzz said. “Maybe it's just a kidnapping scheme or something. Maybe they're just going to hold Richie for ransom. It's possible.”
He and Amy exchanged looks, and although it wasn't easy to read his expression in the green light, Amy knew that Buzz felt the same way about it as she did. Richie couldn't possibly be alive. There wasn't one chance in a million that he would ever smile at them again. Richie was dead, gone, forever.
“We've got to get out of here and call the cops,” Liz said. “We've got to save Richie.”
“Come on,” Buzz said. “We'll walk back to the t'' entrance doors. If we can't open them, maybe this ax is just sharp enough so that I can chop a way out.”
There was no light whatsoever between the green glow of the display on their left side and the front doors, thirty feet away.
Liz looked down the tomb-black tunnel and said, “No. No, I can't walk through all that darkness. What if it's waiting there for us?”
“You have matches in your purse,” Amy said. “We can use those to find our way.”
“Good idea!” Buzz said.
Liz rummaged through her purse with shaking hands and found two packs of matches, one full and one half-empty.
Buzz took them from her. He walked off, into the darkness, struck a match, and was visible again. “Let's go.”
“Wait,” Liz said. “Wait a minute. Maybe . . .”
“Maybe what?” Amy asked.
Buzz shook out the match as it came close to burning his fingers, and he stepped back into the green light.
Liz shook her head to clear it. “I'm so damned wasted. I'm really wrecked. I can't think straight. So isn't it possible that maybe this isn't really happening? Isn't it possible that this is just a bad trip? That was PCP I mixed in the last two joints. You can have a bad trip on A-dust, you know. Some of the worst trips you ever had. Maybe that's what this is. Just a bad trip.”
“We wouldn't all be having the same hallucination,” Buzz said.
“How do I know you're even real?” Liz asked. “You might just exist in my mind. Maybe the real Buzz is sitting beside Amy in the back of that gondola, halfway through the funhouse by now. Maybe I'm in that car, too, so spaced out I don't realize where I am.”
Amy gently slapped Liz's face. “Listen. Listen to me, Liz. This isn't a bad trip. Not the way you mean it. This is real, and I'm scared out of my wits, so let's stop fooling around and get the hell out of here.”
Liz blinked, licked her lips. “Yeah. You're right. Sorry. It's just . . . I wish I didn't feel so wasted.”
Buzz lit one match, then another and another, and they followed him down the dark tunnel toward the funhouse entrance.
* * *
Joey stood with the barker in front of the funhouse, trying to remember why he had been frightened of this man earlier in the day. Now the carny was as friendly as a person could be, and he had a smile so nice that Joey couldn't help smiling, too.
“Have you been through my funhouse yet, son?” the barker asked.
“No,” Joey said. “I've been on a lot of other things, though.”
He had been avoiding the funhouse because he felt uneasy about Conrad Straker, even though Straker had given him two free passes.
“My funhouse is the best attraction on the midway,” Conrad said. “Why don't you let me take you on a personally guided tour? How about that? Not just an ordinary ride like all the marks get, but a guided tour with the owner. I can show you the workings of it, the behind-the-scenes stuff that few people are ever fortunate enough to see. I'll show you how the monsters are built, how they're made to move and growl and gnash their teeth. Everything. All of it. I'll show you the kind of things that a with-it-and-for-it person would enjoy learning about.”
“Gee,” Joey said, “you'd really do that?”
“Certainly,” the barker said heartily. “As I'm sure you noticed, I closed the funhouse down for the night. The ticket booth is closed, as you can see. I just sent the last car through, four nice teenagers.”
“One of them was my sister,” Joey said.
“Oh, really? Let me guess. There was one who looked like you. The dark-haired girl in the green shorts.”
“That's her,” Joey said. “She doesn't know I'm here tonight. I want to wait for her to come out . . . to say hello. Hey, maybe she would like the guided tour, too. Could she come along I'll bet Amy would really enjoy it.”
* * *
The front doors of the funhouse were designed to open inward on hydraulic rams. There were no handles on them, nothing by which they could be gripped or moved.
“If I could get hold of an edge,” Buzz said, “maybe I could pry them open. But they're closed so damned tight.”
“It wouldn't matter if you could get your fingers through a crack,” Amy said. “You wouldn't be able to pull the doors open anyway. I'll bet they're just like the automatic door on the garage at home. As long as they're hooked up to the hydraulic system, they can't be opened manually.”
“Yeah,” Buzz said. “You're right. I should have thought of that.”
Amy was surprised that she was holding up so well. She was scared, and she got a sinking feeling—part grief and part disgust—when she thought of what happened to Richie. But she wasn't coming apart at the seams. In spite of the dope she had smoked, she was in control of herself. In fact she was thinking faster and clearer than Buzz. She
didn't consider herself to be a strong person, Mama always told her that she was weak, flawed. Now her fortitude amazed her.
Liz, on the other hand, was rapidly breaking down. Her eyes brimmed with a steady flow of tears. She looked drawn, years older than she had looked minutes ago. She mewled like a scared kitten.
“Don't panic,” Buzz said. “I've still got the ax.”
Amy lit a series of matches while Buzz swung the ax at the door—six, eight, a dozen blows.
At last he stopped, breathing hard. “No good. There isn't any edge on the damned blade.”
“Someone must have heard all that pounding,” Liz said.
“I doubt it,” Amy said. “Remember, the actual funhouse entrance is set back at least fifteen feet from the ticket booth and the midway, beyond the boarding ramp, at the end of the entrance channel. No one passing by is likely to hear the ax, not above all this music and that laughing clown.”
“But the barker's out there,” Liz said. “He'll hear it.”
“For Christ's sake, Liz,” Buzz said, “get your head together. The barker's not on our side. He's obviously part of it. He lured us in is what he did.”
“So some freak could kill us?” Liz asked. “That doesn't make sense. That's ridiculous. The barker doesn't even know us. Why would he choose a bunch of kids at random and throw them to . . . that thing?”
“Don't you listen to the news on TV?” Buzz asked. “Things don't have to make sense anymore. The world's full of crazies.” ”
But why would he do it?” Liz demanded.
“Maybe just for kicks,” Amy said.
“We'll scream,” Liz said. “We'll scream our fuckin' heads off.”
“Yeah,” Buzz said.
“No,” Amy said. “That's useless, too. The music is louder than usual, and so's the clown's laugh. Nobody's going to hear us—or if someone does, he'll think we're just having fun in here. People are supposed to scream in a funhouse.”
“So what are we going to do?” Liz asked. “We can't just wait here for that thing to come back. We've got to do something, damn it!”
“We'll go around to some of these mechanical monsters and see if we can find anything else like the ax, stuff we can use to defend ourselves,” Buzz said.
“The ax isn't even sharp,” Liz said petulantly. “What the hell good is it?”
“It's sharp enough to hold that thing off,” Buzz said, hefting the ax in both hands. “Maybe it's too dull to cut wood, but it'll sure do some damage to that bastard's face.”
“The only way you're going to hold off that freak is with a shotgun,” Liz said shakily.
As the flame neared Amy's fingers, she dropped the match she was holding. It was burnt out by the time it reached the floor. For a couple of seconds they stood in a darkness like no other that Amy had ever experienced. The darkness did not merely seem to contain a threat, it was the threat. It seemed to be a living, evil, purposeful darkness that pressed close around her, seeking, touching with its cool, black hands.
Liz whimpered softly.
Amy struck another match, and in the welcome burst of light, she said, “Buzz is right. We've got to arm ourselves. But that won't be enough. Even a shotgun might not be enough. That freak could drop out of the ceiling or pop up from the floor so fast that you wouldn't have time to pull the trigger anyway. What we've got to do is find another way out.”
“There isn't a way out,” Liz said. “The exit door will be just like this one. You won't be able to open it or chop it down. We're trapped.”
“There's probably an emergency exit,” Amy said.
“That's right!” Buzz said. “There has to be an emergency door somewhere. And maybe a service entrance, too.”
“We'll arm ourselves as best we can,” Amy said, “and then we'll go looking for a way out.”
“You want to go deeper into this place?” Liz asked incredulously. “Are you out of your fuckin' minds? It'll get us if we go in there.”
“It's just as likely to get us if we stand here by the doors,” Amy said.
“Right,” Buzz said. “Let's get moving.”
“No, no, no!” Liz said, shaking her head violently.
The flame flickered.
Darkness.
Amy struck another match.
The renewed light revealed Liz crouching very low against the sealed doors, looking up at the ceiling, shivering like a cornered rabbit.
Amy took the girl by the arm and pulled her to her feet. “Listen, kid,” Amy said gently, “Buzz and I aren't going to just stand here until that thing comes back for us. So you have to go with us now. If you stay here alone, you're finished for sure. Do you want to stay here all by yourself in the dark?”
Liz put her hands to her eyes, wiped away the tears, droplets still glistened in her lashes, and her face was wet. “All right,” she said unhappily, “I'll go. But I'm sure as hell not going to go first.”
“I'll lead the way,” Buzz assured her.
“I won't go last, either,” Liz said.”
“I'll bring up the rear,” Amy said. “You'll be safe in the middle, Liz. Now let's go.
They fell into line and took only three cautious steps before Liz stopped and said, “My God, how did she know?”
“How did who know what?” Amy asked impatiently.
“How did that fortune-teller know something like this was going to happen?”
They stood in baffled silence for a moment, and the match went out, and Amy fumbled for a long time with the next one before she finally got it burning, suddenly her hands were shaking. Liz's unanswerable question about the fortune-teller had sparked a strange feeling in Amy—a tingle along her spine, not a shiver of fear, but an unnerving quiver of deja vu. She felt that she had been in this situation before—trapped in a dark place with exactly this same horrible freak. For a few seconds that feeling was so shatteringly powerful, so overwhelming, that she felt as if she might faint, but then it passed.
“Did Madame Zena really see into the future?” Liz asked. “That isn't possible, is it? That's too damned weird. What the hell is going on here?”
“I don't know,” Amy said. “But we don't have time to worry about that now. First things first. We've got to find that emergency exit and get out of here.”
Outside, the clown laughed.
Amy, Liz, and Buzz moved deeper into the funhouse.
* * *
For a minute after Joey asked for a rain check on the guided tour, Conrad stood behind the boy, staring at the double exit doors, pretending to wait for the sister and her friends to come out of the funhouse.
“What's taking them so long?” Joey asked.
“Oh, it's the longest ride on the midway,” Conrad said quickly. He pointed to a poster that proclaimed precisely that virtue of the funhouse.
“I saw that,” Joey said. “But it can't be this long.”
“Twelve full minutes.”
“They've been in there longer than that.”
Conrad looked at his watch and frowned.
“And why haven't any other cars come out?” Joey asked. “Weren't there cars ahead of them?”
Conrad stepped up to the gondola channel by the exit ramp and looked down at the tracks. Faking surprise, he said, “The center drive chain isn't moving.”
“What's that mean?” Joey asked, stepping up beside him.
“It means the damned machinery has broken down again,” Conrad said. “It happens every once in a while. Your sister and her friends are stuck in there. I'll have to go inside and see what's wrong with the equipment.” He turned away and started around the side of the funhouse. Then he stopped and looked back as if he had forgotten Joey for a moment. “Come along, son. I might need your help.”
The boy hesitated.
“Come on,” Conrad said. “Let's not leave your sister sitting in the dark.”
The boy followed him to the rear of the funhouse.
Conrad opened the door that led to the room beneath the main floor o
f the structure. He went inside, felt for the light chain, pulled on it.
Joey entered after him. “Wow!” the boy said. “I didn't realize there'd be so many machines!”
Conrad closed and locked the door behind them. When he turned to Joey, he grinned and said, “You lying little shit. Your mother's name isn't Leona".”
* * *
Amy, Liz, and Buzz were deep in the funhouse when a string of lights came on above the track. They had turned several sharp bends, had edged nervously down a couple of long, dark straightaways, and had just started up a steep slope, past wax dummies of monsters from various science fiction movies. The lights didn't completely dispel the darkness. Deep shadows lay close by. But any light at all was welcome, for Amy had only one match left.
“What's happening?” Liz asked anxiously. She was frightened of any change in their situation, even if that change meant light instead of darkness.
“I don't know,' Amy said uneasily.
“It's turned the lights on so it can look for us more easily,” Liz said. “That's what's happening, and you know it.”
“Well, if that is the case,” Amy said, “we'll be a lot harder to find if we keep moving.”
“Right,” Buzz said. “Let's don't just stand here. Let's find a way out.”
“There isn't one,” Liz said. But she moved uphill with them.
When they reached the top of the rise, they found a large display featuring six man-sized, tentacled, bug-eyed monsters. The aliens were disembarking from a flying saucer, absurd shapes frozen in the frost-pale backwash from the lights above the tracks.
“That saucer's pretty damned big,” Buzz said. “I'll bet we could all three hide in it.”
“They'd be sure to look in there,” Amy said. “We can't stand still, and we can't hide. We have to get out.”
Just as she finished speaking, the drive chain in the center of the tracks started to move.
They all jumped, startled.
In the distance an approaching gondola rattled noisily along the rails—clatter-clunk-clatter-clunk—a hard, sharp sound, audible above the music and the recorded laughter, growing louder by the second.
