consciousness, she tried to figure out where she was. The room was
perfectly black, as utterly lightless as the inside of the Devil’s
pocket.
The wooden floor was crude, and it was filled with vibrations, the
muffled sound of machinery.
Someone screamed. Then someone else. The air was split by a maniacal
laugh.
Music swelled. The vibrations in the floor resolved into the
clacketyclackety-clack of steel wheels on a metal track.
She was in the funhouse. Probably in the service area. Behind the
tracks on which the cars moved.
A trickle of strength seeped into Chrissy’s body again, but she was
barely able to lift one hand to her bruised temple. She expected to
find her skin and hair wet and sticky with blood, but they were dry.
The flesh was tender but apparently unbroken.
The stranger knelt on the floor beside her.
She could hear him, sense him, but not see him, however, even in this
pitch-black hole, she was aware of his great size, he loomed.
He’s going to rape me, she thought. God, no. Please. Oh, please
don’t let him do it.
This stranger was breathing curiously. Sniffing. Snuffling. Like an
animal.
Like a dog trying to get her scent.
“No,” she said.
He grunted again.
Bob will come looking for me, she told herself hopefully,
frantically.
Bob will come, he’s got to come, he’s got to come and save me, good old
Bob, please, God, please.
She was succumbing to a rapidly burgeoning panic as her head cleared
and as the terrible danger became more and more evident to her.
The stranger touched her hip.
She tried to pull back.
He held her.
She was gasping, shaking. The temporary paralysis faded, the numbness
in her limbs vanished. Abruptly she was awash in pain from the blow to
the head that she had suffered a few minutes ago.
The stranger moved his hand up her belly to her breasts and ripped open
her blouse.
She cried out.
He slapped her, jarring her teeth.
She realized that it was useless to call for help in a funhouse.
Even if people heard her above all the music, above the recorded
howling and wailing of the ghosts and monsters, they would think she
was just another thrill-seeker startled by a pop-up pirate or a
jack-in-the-box vampire.
The man tore off her bra.
She was no match for him physically, but enough of her strength had
returned for her to offer some resistance, and she couldn’t just lie
there, waiting for him to take her. She reached for his hands, grabbed
them, intending to push them away, but with a shock she discovered that
they were not ordinary hands.
They weren’t a man’s hands. Not exactly. They were . . .
different.
Oh, God.
She became aware of two green ovals in the blackness. Two softly
shining, green spots. Floating above her.
Eyes.
She was looking into the stranger’s eyes.
What sort of man has eyes that shine in the dark?
Bob Drew stood at the carousel with one candy apple in each hand,
waiting for Chrissy. After five minutes he started to eat his own
apple.
After ten minutes he grew impatient and began to pace. After fifteen
minutes he was angry with Chrissy, she was a gorgeous girl, fun to be
with, but she was sometimes flighty and frequently inconsiderate.
After twenty minutes his anger began to give way to mild concern, then
he began to worry. Maybe she was sick. She had eaten an incredible
amount and variety of junk. It would be amazing if she didn’t upchuck
sooner or later.
Besides, you never knew for sure how clean and wholesome carnival food
was.
Maybe she had gotten a bad hot dog or had unwittingly eaten some piece
of filth along with her chiliburger.
Considering that possibility, he began to feel queasy himself. He
stared at his half-eaten candy apple and finally dropped it into a
trash barrel.
He wanted to find her and satisfy himself that she was all right, but
he didn’t think she would be too happy to see him while her breath
still stank of vomit. If she had just been sick in the ladies’ room,