the barrier, however, there was no turning back. Here was where
the two worlds divided, and the choice was made - pussy or man.
Everybody was anxious to get inside the park's gates to prove
where he stood. With the gang you felt cold and nervous while
awaiting the wrath of whatever might be lurking inside-but outside,
the chances of surviving any lurking danger alone made you even
more nervous- jittery enough to crawl up into a ball and piss your
pants at every crack of a twig.
So, you see, it's not that we all wanted to go inside. But even if we
were scared to death of climbing the cold rails of the SkyCoaster,
staying alone while the rest of the bunch climbed over and
ventured inside was even worse than the original dare itself.
Surprisingly enough, Kirby was the first one up the fence to lay his
jacket across the barbed wire and hop to the soft asphalt of Skybar
on the other side. The rest of us followed, thud, sputt, thud
sounding through the night air as we each dropped to the ground
on the other side. We were in now. Eddie Frachers, the shorter of
the two White Dragons, lit up a smoke, flicked on the flashlight,
and led the way with Brant.
The station was empty when we got to the steel rails of the coaster,
and climbing the steps to the gate station was an unusual
experience in itself since there was no waiting in line for an hour
while an old man standing in front of you blew cigarette fumes in
your face in the riding hot sun as your stomach turned putred, your
facial skin pale. Now it was home free between the coaster and us,
free space all the way.
Hurry hurry step right up!
The metal floor thundered hundreds of beats under our feet as we
made our way across the vacant station to the terminal gates, and I
looked several times over my shoulder as we walked the deserted
leading board, my senses ready for anything that might decide to
go more than "bump" in the night. I was the first one to hear it, in
fact, and my body grew limp, my bowels limp with it when I heard
the direction it was coming from - the coaster cars.
They all sat in front of us, grey and orange from rust and age, their
silent features corrupting the night with an evil air, and I recall
standing there as the others began to hear it too, my hands shaking,
legs drooping, mouth hanging open stupidly as I attempted to say
something - I don't know what - and nothing would come out.
I don't know how long we all stood there, waiting for something,
anything to happen. The cars seemed mystic in their own way as
they stood their ground and refused to let us any nearer by chanting
some evil spell among themselves to keep us back. A spell is one
thing, but if you've ever thought you heard a car (or possibly some
dangerous lunatic hiding behind a car) singing something, you'd
understand how we all felt that night. Even Brant and the two
White Dragons appeared motionless in the soft glow from the
flashlight, but somehow Eddie brought the flashlight up to meet
whatever was occupying the first car.
"Hey! Turn it off damnit!"
A surge of relief at its at least being human swelled up in me, but I
still stood there, motionless and quivering, even as Eddie and the
rest of the bunch, even Kirby, started toward the coaster. I must
have still been in a daze, because I found myself wanting to stop
them, to pull them back to me, to end it all, turn around and get the
hell back over the fence. But I still stood there as fog rolled around
my eyes and my sight blurred, leaving only my ears to tell me the
horrible fate of our party.
"What the hell are you..." ". . are you sure that it's them . . ." "What
are they doing here like this..." A long, ear-piercing scream
followed, the kind women usually scream in those horror movies at
Starboard Cinema when the vampire wraps his cape around his
victim and starts sucking the living blood out of her. It rose to
almost unbelievable splitting levels then faded away with
suppressed laughter followed by "59 bottles of beer on the wall, 59
bottles of beer..."
A hand touched my shoulder and I reeled to find Kirby at my feet,
telling me that the other guys had gone ahead without me and I'd
better hurry up. I ran and caught up with them by the main track,
where they had already begun the climb. Brant was first, then the
White Dragons, and then Dewey and John, clinging tightly to the
steel tracks behind them. I ran the 20 feet to the final, highest 100
foot drop, and started up after them.
The cold steel rails clapped clamily into my skin as I started
shinnying up, looking to where Brant and the Dragons were
perched high above. I couldn't weigh the amount of energy I had
left to figure how I was gonna climb 100 fucking feet barehanded.
It's kind of like that joke about the little ant crawling up the
elephant's hind leg with rape on its mind. I probably wouldn't make
it, but I had high hopes.
Kirby never touched the rails. I couldn't blame him after the train
event, maybe something happened to him when he was younger, or
something. Kirby told me a lot of things best left confidential, but
he never told me anything about it either. He may not have wanted
to climb, but to me he was no pussy.
A lot of things go through your mind when you're 45 feet off the
ground climbing rail by rail on a ladder without rungs. One
hundred feet of sheer pole climbing with occasional crosspieces to
hang on to isn't much, and you begin to wonder, What if Dewey
slips and falls into me? What if I lose my grip and sail to the
bottom? How will I get down once I'm up there? Can drunk
Dragons fly? And then you look at the bottom, and all of your fears
are summed up in one phrase:
Don't look down.
Hand over hand, pull over pull, I made my way upward, trusting
that the pace of those above me wasn't too slow. I never really
looked up to where Brant and his friends were while I was
climbing. Even to this day I remember the blackness of the night
sky mixing well with my own blackout as I shut my eyes tightly to
the things around me. I was climbing to the top, and I just couldn't
stop. Hand over hand. That's when the screaming started, loud and
forceful, over and over, with an occasional splashing behind it as if
someone below were enjoying a late night swim and horseplay in
the murky pond. Ignoring my own rule, I shot a glance down.
God, how weird it looked. If you've ever been on a roller coaster
right as it goes down the steepest slope, you can understand the
feeling; the depth, the rails shooting together as they plummet
below right as you drop over the top. Imagine yourself frozen in
that position. Below, the rails meet and your stomach assumes a
new position in your throat. And standing on those gleaming rails,
still holding Eddie's flashlight and stained with the dark was Kirby,
gazing back up at me, a look of confusion, horror and what to do
next? written across his face. He scared the hell o
ut of me the way
he just stood there, arms at his side, staring at me but saying
nothing.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" I shouted down with extra
force. No answer. "Kirby, what's wrong?" By then I knew damn
well what was wrong. The tracks had begun to drum under my
hands, and the frame of the SkyCoaster itself had begun to sway
rhythmically from side to side. Then the awful sound of the roar of
a coaster car spinning around some distant bend, fading out, then
coming back in, fading out again-and coming back with
thunderous racket that sent my stomach and my heart both jumping
on top of my tonsils.
Then Brant screamed. It was like the scream of a woman's that I
described earlier, but louder, blending in with the steady clack-
clack-clack of a chain-dragged coaster car on an electrified track. I
didn't ask any questions, but simply locked both hands together,
swung both feet together and slid down the rail to the bottom.
If you've ever been on a roller car as it plummets the final hill - the
Grandaddy drop - you'll probably know the feeling of fear that
builds up in you. There's always a chance that you may fly from
the car to the steel tracks below as the force presses your spine
against the back cover and shakes you with head-splitting strength
to the bottom. There was no car for me to ride in that night -no
seat, no belt, no safety bar to pull against my slumped torso. And
as I sailed to the bottom, my mind made a different rule that I was
forced to follow - Don't look.
The wind stopped suddenly in my hair, and I realized that I was
down on the bottom rails of the coaster, hanging dreadfully close
to the murky waters of Skybar Pond. And as I hung there
momentarily I could picture Randy Stayner waiting below, a
mossy green hand beginning to emerge to the surface, and as I
imagined this, I also visualized others like him in a sea of arms,
reaching for my dangling shirt tail as I hung there, all of them
coming up to the surface to get me, or desperately reaching out as
they were dragged down. A splurge of violent bubbling water
popped to the surface, jolting me back to Skybar and, getting to my
feet, I pulled myself to the shore and somehow managed to pull
Kirby with me. He was still standing in a daze, eyes fixed on the
tracks where the coaster car was falling toward us.
And as we ran through the depot station past the empty coaster
cars, I could hear the steady thud-thud-thud of the one car
advancing on us. I shot a glance over my shoulder as we both ran
on, my feet and eyes growing with every step.
Then I let go of Kirby. I can't clearly remember when, but I
remember all that ran through my mind was Run Like Hell! I flew
up the chain link fence behind Pop Dupree's, cutting my hands
severely on the barbed wire. After jumping to the safe ground on
the other side, I didn't stop running until I was almost a mile away
on Granges Point, where I could still hear the soft screaming
laughter of the seabreeze through the Funhouse clown, and could
see the vague form of the SkyCoaster winding through the trees.
Somewhere behind one of the tents - I can still swear it was the
freak tent - a light glowed softly. I sat there, staring at it,
wondering if it was Kirby trying to find his way out of the dark.
Then I heard the cracking grass of footsteps behind me and whirled
to find Kirby standing in front of me. My legs were shaking, and
my teeth began to chatter softly, and he walked up to me and put
his arm around me.
"It's okay. We made it. We're pretty brave, huh? Right up and right
down those rails. We're far away from it now, though. We're not
there now" I stared at him and wondered how the hell he got there.
I couldn't recall dragging him with me. I couldn't believe how calm
he stood there-how he acted like it was all a scary movie at
Starboard Cinema and we were walking home in the dark trying to
calm ourselves down. Then he turned me toward the park and
started to walk away.
"Coming?" "Kirb, you're headin' the wrong way."
I turned toward home and started to run again. After a while. Kirby
came running up to me, and we didn't stop until we were five miles
away from Skybar and on my front porch. I can still see the horror
in poor Kirby's eyes as he saw his best friends and the Dragons
drop to death before him. Even after seeing that smiling, rotting
freak clambering from behind the safety bar of the coaster car that
had rolled over Brant and the others, he stuck with me at the
bottom and didn't run. The only ones who acted as bravely as
Kirby were the drunk Dragons who jumped at the first sight of the
coaster car coming toward them. Maybe it was bravery, maybe it
was the liquor, but it doesn't matter because the 100 foot dive to
the pond was a mistake either way. Brant and the rest may have
tried to slide, but they never made it to safety and the authorities
still haven't pulled their bodies from the murky pond waters to this
day.
And still, in my dreams, I feel Kirby taking my hand and telling
me it was okay; we were safe, we were home free. And then I
heard the thud-thud-thud of a single SkyCoaster car rolling toward
us. I want to tell Kirby not to look -"Don't look, man!" I scream,
but the words won't come out. He does look. And as the car rolls
up to the deserted station, we see Randy Stayner lolling behind the
safety bar, his head driven almost into his chest. The fun-house
clown begins to scream laughter somewhere behind us, and Kirby
begins to scream with it. I try to run, but my feet tangle in each
other and I fall, sprawling. Behind me I can see Randy's corpse
pushing the safety bar back and he begins to stumble toward me,
his dead, shredded fingers hooked into seeking claws. I see these
things in my dreams, and in the moments before I wake,
screaming, in my wife's arms, I know what the grown-ups must
have seen that summer in the freak tent that was for Adults Only. I
see these things in my dreams, yes, but when I visit Kirby in that
place where he still lives, that place where all the windows are
cross-hatched with heavy mesh, I see them in his eyes. I take his
hand and his hand is cold, but I sit with him and sometimes I think:
These things happened to me when I was young.
SLADE
Stephen King
"Slade." The Maine Campus June-August 1970. "Slade" is in some
ways the most exciting of King1s uncollected juvenalia, an
engaging explosion of off the wall humor, literary pastiche, and
cultural criticism, all masquerading as a Western - the adventures
of Slade and his quest for Miss Polly Peachtree of Paduka.
Published in several installments in the UMO college newspaper
during the summer following King's graduation, the story is most
important in showing King reveling in the joy of writing.
-excerpt from "The Annotated Guide to Stephen King, p.45.
It was almost dark when Slade rode into Dead Steer Springs. He
&n
bsp; was tall in the saddle, a grim faced man dressed all in black. Even
the handles of his two sinister .45s, which rode low on his hips,
were black. Ever since the early 1870s, when the name of Slade
had begun to strike fear into the stoutest of Western hearts, there
had been many whispered legends about his dress. One story had it
that he wore black as a perpetual emblem of mourning for his
Illinois sweetheart, Miss Polly Peachtree of Paduka, who passed
tragically from this vale of tears when a flaming Montgolfer
balloon crashed into the Peachtree barn while Polly was milking
the cows. But some said he wore black because Slade was the
Grim Reaper's agent in the American Southwest - the devil's
handyman. And then there were some who thought he was queerer
than a three-dollar bill. No one, however, advanced this last idea to
his face.
Now Slade halted his huge black stallion in front of the Brass
Cuspidor Saloon and climbed down. He tied his horse and pulled
one of his famous Mexican cigars from his breast pocket. He lit it
and let the acrid smoke drift out onto the twilight air. From inside
the bat-wing doors of the Brass Cuspidor came noises of drunken
revelry. A honkytonk piano was beating out "Oh, Them Golden
Slippers."
A faint shuffling noise came to Slade's keen ears, and he wheeled
around, drawing both of his sinister.45s in a single blur of motion
"Watch it there, mister!"
Slade shovelled his pistols back into their holsters with a snarl of
contempt. It was an old man in a battered Confederate cap, dusty
jeans and suspenders. Either the town drunk or the village idiot,
Slade surmised. The old man cackled, sending a wave of bad
breath over to Slade. "Thought you wuz gonna hole me fer sure,
Stranger."
Slade smoked and looked at him.
"Yore Jack Slade, ain'tchee, Pard?" The old man showed his
toothless gums in another smile. "Reckon Miss Sandra of the Bar-
T hired you, that right? She's been havin' a passel of trouble with
Sam Columbine since her daddy died an' left her to run the place."
Slade smoked and looked at him. - The old man suddenly rolled
his eyes. "Or mebbe yore workin' fer Sam Columbine hisseif - that
it? I heer he's been hiring a lot of real hardcases to help pry Miss
Sandra off'n the Bar-T. Is that-"
"Old man," Slade said, "I hope you run as fast as you talk. Because
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