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!n Buzz said. “There has to be an emergency door
somewhere. And maybe a service entrance, too.” aWe’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.” I
“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 i = 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 ‘5.
steps before Liz stopped and said, aMy 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?” Y don’t know,” Amy said. aBut 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. aBut 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