forever.
aWe’ve got to get out of here and call the cops,” Liz said.
UWe’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.” aWe 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.
aMy 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