time.
Nevertheless . . .
She had a strong sense of duty.
She walked up the boarding ramp, past the ticket booth, and stepped
down into the sunken channel in which the gondolas would move when the
ride was started up. From the boarding gate the channel led to a set
of large plywood doors that were painted to resemble the massive,
timbered, iron-hinged doors of a forbidding castle. When the ride was
in service, the doors would swing back to admit each oncoming car, then
fall shut behind it.
At the moment, as she approached the entrance, one door was propped
open. She i peered inside.
The interior of the funhouse wasn’t as dark now as it would be when the
ride was in operation. A string of work lights ran the length of the
track and disappeared around a bend fifty feet away, when the place was
open for business, those lights would be extinguished. Yet even with
that chain of softly glowing bulbs, the funhouse was gloomy.
– Janet leaned through the doorway. “Hello?”
No one answered.
. “Is anyone there?” she asked.
Silence.
She switched on her flashlight, hesitated only a second, and stepped
inside.
The funhouse smelled damp and oily.
She knelt and inspected the pins that joined two sections of track.
They were securely fastened.
She got up and moved deeper into the building.
On both sides of the track, slightly elevated from it, life-sized
mechanical figures stood in secret niches in the walls: an ugly,
leering pirate with a sword in his hand, a werewolf, claws coated with
silvery, day-glow paint that would make them look like glinting blades
in the dark, phony but realistic blood on his wolfish snout and on his
two-inch-long fangs, a grinning, blood-drenched ax-murderer standing
over the hideously wounded corpse of one of his victims, and many
others, some more gruesome than those first few. In this light Janet
could see that they were only clever, lifelike mannequins, but she felt
uneasy around them.
Although none of them was animated, as all of them would be when the
funhouse was in operation, they looked as if they were about to pounce
on her, to her chagrin, the damned things spooked her. But her dislike
of them didn’t prevent her from inspecting the anchor bolts on a few of
them to make sure they wouldn’t topple down into a passing gondola and
injure a rider.
Walking along the passageway, looking up at the monsters, Janet
wondered why people insisted on referring to a place like this as a
funhouse.
She turned the bend at the end of the first length of track, moved
farther into the funhouse, turned another corner, then another,
marveling at the richness of invention that had been employed in the
design of the place. It was huge, as large as a medium-sized
warehouse, and it was crammed full of genuinely frightening things. It
wasn’t the sort of amusement that appealed to her, but she had to
admire the work, the craftsmanship, and the creativity that had gone
into it.
She was in the center of the enormous structure, standing on the track,
looking up at a man-sized spider hanging overhead, when someone put a
hand on her shoulder. She gasped, jumped, jerked away from the
unexpected contact, turned, I and would have screamed if her throat
hadn’t frozen. i A man was standing on the tracks behind her. He was
extremely tall, at least six and a half feet, broad-shouldered,
barrel-chested, and he was wearing a Frankenstein outfit: a black suit,
a black turtleneck, monster gloves, and a rubber mask that covered his
entire head. “Scared?” he asked. His voice was exceptionally deep
and hoarse. She swallowed hard, finally breathed, and said, aYes, my
God! You scared me half to death.” , “My job,” he said. “What?”
“Scare the marks. My job.” “Oh. You work here at the funhouse?”
“My job,” he said. n She decided that he must be dull-witted. His
simple, halting declarations resembled the speech patterns of a
severely retarded child. Trying to be friendly, hoping to keep him
friendly, she said, My name’s Janet. What’s yours?” “Huh?” “What’s
your name?”
“Gunther.” “That’s a nice name.” “Don’t like.” “You don’t like your