them.
Liz tried to run and hide.
Amy grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her over to the flying saucer,
where the occupant of the gondola would spot them just as he reached
the crest of the hill.
Buzz positioned himself beside the rock, completely visible to Liz and
Amy, but hidden from the oncoming car. He held the ax in both hands.
: Clatter-clunk . . . clatter-clunk . . . clatter . . . clunk . .
.
The car was slowing down as the grade of the tracks increased.
Buzz lifted the ax over his head.
Amy saw the front of the gaily painted car move into sight.
“Jesus, let me go, let me go, Amy,” Liz said.
Amy held her wrist even more firmly.
The first seat of the car was visible now. It appeared to be empty.
Clatter . . . clunk . . . clatter . . .
Very slowly now.
Hardly moving now.
Finally the rear seat came into view.
Amy squinted. If the lights had been just a fraction dimmer than they
were, she wouldn’t have been able to see the thing in the backseat of
the gondola.
But she did see it. Just a lump. A formless shadow. It was crouched
on the floor of the car, trying to deceive them.
Buzz saw it, too. With a karate-like yell of fury, he stepped out from
behind the boulder and swung the ax down, below the level of his feet,
into the gondola. It connected with such force at the extreme end of
its arc that it was jerked out of his hands.
The thing in the car didn’t move, and the car itself ground to a
complete stop.
“I got him!” Buzz shouted.
Liz and Amy rushed to him.
Buzz got down on his knees, reached into the gondola channel, into the
car, and seized the ax handle again. He pulled up, and the thing into
which the dull blade had sunk was lifted up with it.
A head.
Not the freak’s head.
The freak hadn’t been on that rear seat.
The dull blade of the ax was embedded deeply in Richie’s skull.
Brains oozed from the fissures I in the bone and slid down his bloody
face.
Liz screamed.
Buzz dropped the ax and turned away from the gondola. He vomited on
the papier-mfiche boulder.
Amy was so stunned that she let go of Liz’s hand.
Liz was screaming at Buzz now. “You stupid son of a bitch! You killed
him! You killed Richie!n Both Liz and Amy had armed themselves with
dull, rusty knives that they had taken from the funhouse displays, and
now Liz raised her knife as if she might attack Buzz with it. “You
stupid asshole! You killed Richie!n “No,” Amy said. “No, Liz. Baby,
listen. Buzz didn’t kill him.
Listen, Richie was already dead. It was just his corpse in that car.”
Sobbing with terror, her fear magnified by the drugs that she had taken
all evening, Liz turned and ran before Amy could grab her. She fled
across the flying saucer display, between two tentacled aliens whose
rubbery appendages wobbled in the air after she brushed past them. She
vanished in shadows, behind the papier-mfiche rocks.
aLiz, damn it!n Amy said.
The sound of the other girl’s panicked flight faded rapidly. She
disappeared into the bowels of the funhouse.
Amy turned to Buzz again.
He was on his knees. He had just finished being violently sick.
The stink was terrible. He wiped the back of his hand across his
soiled mouth.
“Are you okay?” Amy asked.
“Holy Christ, it was Richie,” he said weakly.
“He was already dead,” Amy said.
aBut it was Richie!n “Don’t flake out on me,” Amy said.
“I . . . I won’t.” “You’re okay?” “I guess . . . yeah.” “Get hold
of yourself.”
“I’m all right.” aWe have to keep our cool if we’re going to survive.”
aBut this is crazy,” Buzz said.
“It’s crazy,” Amy agreed. aBut it’s happening.” “Locked in a funhouse
with a . . . a monster.” ~ “It’s happening, and we have to deal with
it,” she said patiently.
Buzz nodded, sucked in his stomach, struggled to regain his macho