He looked at me a moment more, considering it. "All right, I get your point." He smiled at Maggie. "I"ve been purged of the creep factor by Captain Courageous here." Then he took her hand gently. "You can drive."
She sort of accepted his sort-of apology, and all was well among the three of us again. Yet somehow this was not the resolution I had hoped for. I turned my attention to the b.u.mper cars still waiting for us. I took the blue one, Russ and Maggie took the green. The car was so cramped, I had to bring my knees up at weird angles, and it was worse for Russ and Maggie, who had to sit toboggan style in a seat meant for much smaller people.
I looked out at another b.u.mper car slipping in and out of existence, its rider screaming with some thrill we"d yet to experience.
"What do you think they see?" I asked, mainly to myself, but Maggie answered.
"I"ll bet it"s not stop signs."
There was a spark in her eye that reminded me of the spinning lights I saw in my brother"s eyes when he lay unconscious. It gave me the vein chills, if you know what I mean.
This place is going to get her, I thought. Maybe not on this ride, but on the next or the one after that. I shook the thought away by flooring the accelerator.
The little wheels of the car spun, and I fishtailed. The pole rising from the rear of the car wiggled, extending upward. The electrical contact at its tip touched nothing but empty air.
As I accelerated the world began to change.
The sky was the first thing I noticed, how it went from angry red to tomato orange, like it was on fire. I looked at my watch in fear. Was this the light of sunrise? But the skies here had no bearing on time in the real world. According to my watch, it was only three in the morning.
The car began to change around me. At first I thought I was shrinking; but no-it was the steering wheel growing larger, it was the cramped leg s.p.a.ce extending as well. The windshield and the dashboard spread out-everything was stretching like rubber. And in an instant I knew I was no longer in a b.u.mper car. I was driving something much, much bigger. Something old. Vintage, you might call it. See, I know my old cars. I had a collection of models on the shelves of my room. Pierce Arrows. Ford Hi-Boys. Sleek old cars with long silver grills: Beautiful machines, from the 1920s and "30s, when automobiles were both monstrous and s.e.xy at the same time. But the vehicle I was driving now, well, it was a little more boxy than the other cars riding around me.
It was a Volvo.
I was in a 1931 Volvo, speeding down narrow cobblestone streets lined by brown-bricked buildings and old-fashioned billboards. In the blazing night sky above, a sliver of a moon hung on its side like a half-closed eyelid, and the bricks around me echoed a distant sound that I first took to be thunder. Then I realized it wasn"t thunder at all. It was machine-gun fire. Now I knew what city this was supposed to be. This was Chicago, in the bad ol" days. This b.u.mper car ride was a demolition derby in the middle of a gangster war.
"Clutch!" I heard Russ scream.
I looked over to see him and Maggie take out a fire hydrant as they turned down a side street. The hydrant became a geyser, and they disappeared down the street, part of their b.u.mper trailing behind them. There were no road rules here, no order. Every car was a weapon.
Wham!
As if my thoughts weren"t scrambled enough, I was rear-ended by a curly-haired twelve-year-old with teeth too long for his face and a crooked sneer. You know how your mom told you if you kept making an ugly face, it"d stay that way? Well, this kid"s face did.
"You snooze, you bruise," he said, and took off down another street.
My neck hurt from the collision. I wanted more than anything to go after him and to nail his apple green w.i.l.l.ys Coupe, all shiny and new. In that moment I had enough road rage to flatten a hundred sneering snots in their lousy little cars.
Lose yourself in it, an inner voice told me. Floor that accelerator and ram someone. Anyone. Do it for all the times that someone hurt you and you couldn"t do a thing about it. Make someone pay. Sometimes it"s like people leave their brain in the trunk before they get behind the wheel of a car, and that"s exactly what was happening here. That"s what this ride was all about.
I could listen to that voice, I knew I could. That would be the easy thing to do. Whether that voice was in my head or was put in my head, it didn"t really matter, did it? The temptation was so overpowering. It was as irresistible as a summertime thirst, and I felt I"d do anything to quench it. Then I thought about Quinn, and that kept me from giving myself over to the ride. I was certain that he had already given himself over to the rides, which meant that I couldn"t. I was the rational, sensible one. The balanced one. So I floored the accelerator, not at someone"s b.u.mper, but in search of Quinn. I was determined to find him, shake some sense into him, and drag him back home. I had one hand on the wheel. It wasn"t my normal ten-and-two position, but right then I didn"t care.
I will not be caught up in this, I told myself. I will drive, but I won"t ride.
I turned the wheel sharply to avoid being nailed by some other demolition derby driver bent on turning my car into sc.r.a.p metal. I was a good driver. I was a safe driver. So what if this wasn"t exactly a course in driver"s ed? I"d make it through, and I wouldn"t let myself be hit again.
Find your way to another ride. Ca.s.sandra"s words echoed in my mind. Survive this and then find the next ride. Yes, find the next ride. . . . But first find Quinn.
I came to a major intersection, and that"s where I finally saw him. Quinn was driving a blue Ford Hi-Boy, a freaky-looking thing with a grimace of a grill, as rude as he was. He whooped like a cowboy in a rodeo, his wheels screeching as he took off down another street, never even seeing me.
"Quinn!" But he was already gone.
I didn"t see the car that hit me until it was too late. These old cars didn"t have crumple zones-they didn"t even have seat belts. I was broadsided from the right, but my backend took most of the blow; a single, sickening crunch, and my shoulder hit the side window. My car spun out, and when I came to a halt, I was facing the other car, which lay beached over a bus stop bench. The rider was a girl, about a year younger than me-probably not even old enough to drive.
"I"ll get you, you stinking lousy . . ." She was practically frothing at the mouth, all the anger of her life funneled into this moment. Her forehead bled from the crash, but she didn"t care about that. She tried to maneuver her car off the bench, but she couldn"t.
"Oh, man, you"re dust," she yelled. "I swear I"ll get you!"
Road rage consumed her like a fungus, and yet this girl was enjoying it. This was an amus.e.m.e.nt park, all right. I suppose everything, even anger, can be worked into amus.e.m.e.nt. Knowing that helped me resist the urge to let it happen to me. Had Maggie and Russ given in to the rage? Had they joined the rampage of crashing cars? I didn"t even know if I"d be able to find them again.
Closer than the distant screeches of tires, I heard the sound of an idling car. It was a deep, low rumble, more like a growl. Down the street was a tomato orange car with whitewall tires and dark windows. It was different from the other cars: longer, sleeker, and its sheen was the same fiery color of the sky. The angry girl in the beached car took one look at it and bailed, forgetting me and running for her life.
As the orange car slowly rolled forward, picking up speed, it was as if its tires barely touched the road. Weightless. Graceful. The car continued to accelerate to where my Volvo straddled the curb. The driver"s side window rolled down, and a gray nozzle poked out.
I hurled my car into gear and floored the accelerator. My car seemed about to stall, but the gear grabbed and I lurched forward. Not fast enough. The orange car glided past, and through the window, I saw the bulging, circular cartridge of one of those old-fashioned gangster machine guns. Rat-a-tat-tat-that"s just what it sounded like, just like it did in those old movies. I ducked as the blasts ripped up the side of my car and shattered my windows. I was just low enough to avoid getting hit.
This place isn"t real, I told myself. These bullets can"t be real.
And again, I wondered what would happen to me if I died on the ride.
The wreck I saw in the street ahead gave me my answer. It was the apple-green wreck of the obnoxious kid"s car-the one who had nailed me when I first entered the ride. His car was upside down and burning. I didn"t see him inside, but there was a billboard on the brick wall above the wreck. It was a Coca-Cola ad featuring the painted face of a kid holding a gla.s.s bottle of pop. It was the same kid who had been driving the car, and although his mouth smiled in the poster, his eyes stared out fixed in eternal horror above a caption that read: c.o.kE! THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES! If eyes could scream, the sound would have been bloodcurdling.
As I looked at the many billboards and advertis.e.m.e.nts plastered around the narrow maze of streets, every face on them had that same fixed expression. This was all that was left of the riders who hadn"t survived the b.u.mper cars.
The orange car had circled around and was coming back toward me, gliding in that weightless way. Time seemed to slow down, and I knew that if I didn"t move soon, I"d wind up staring out of a toothpaste ad or something, with my own locked-jaw grin and shrieking eyes. I tried to open the door and jump out of the car, but the handle broke off in my hand, and when I turned to see what options I had, I realized it was too late. The orange car was already gliding past. I was about to hurl myself to the floorboards again, but all at once I was. .h.i.t by a searing blast of deja vu, as deadly as gunfire. For an instant I was not there. For an instant I was somewhere else.
Seven years old. The smell of bubble gum in the air. Landscape flying past a window . . . then a sports car, shiny tomato orange. The face in the car is a blur of shadows. But the eyes-they"re in clear focus. Eyes as blue as glacier ice or a gas flame. I see them for an instant, through a school bus window. Then the orange car speeds up. It pulls in front of us, cutting us off. The bus driver spins the wheel, losing control and- And I was back in the twisted mockery of old Chicago. The vision was gone, and although I didn"t quite know where it had come from or what it meant, I knew it had unlocked a door somewhere deep inside me. It was a door that could come swinging open at any time, and, not knowing what was behind it, I wasn"t so sure I liked it unlocked.
The orange car was gone. I climbed out through the broken window of my car and slipped away down an alley so narrow that I had to walk sideways. The alley opened into another street and up ahead there was a little tavern, its neon sign flickering red. A wave intersecting a spiral. The ride symbol. And as I looked at the symbol on the back of my hand, it began to glow. I slowly approached the tavern and pushed open the door.
A bell jingled, and as I let the door close behind me the dangerous sounds of the city became distant, like a low rumble of thunder-far enough away to know you were safe, but close enough to keep you on edge.
The place smelled of spilled beer and polished wood. It was deserted except for the bartender, who wiped down the bar with a rag.
"h.e.l.lo, Blake," he said, with a broad smile. "Rough night out there?"
"How come you know my name?"
The smile never left his face. "I know all my customers."
I looked the place over, peering under tables, behind the bar, but I couldn"t find a turnstile.
"Can I help you find something, sir?"
It seemed bizarre to me, this middle-aged man calling me "sir." I didn"t feel like a sir. "I"m looking for the next ride."
"A ride?" He put down his rag, then pulled out an old-fashioned black telephone, with a circular dial, and left it on the counter. "If it"s a ride you need, I could call you a taxi. But around here, I can"t vouch for the drivers."
Out of curiosity, I picked up the receiver, wondering if it actually reached out of this place, like some landline to sanity. Instead of a dial tone, all I heard in the receiver was calliope music. I hung up quickly.
"Never mind."
The bartender pulled out a gla.s.s and deftly filled it with what appeared at first to be beer. Then he poured in some of that red cherry-flavored stuff-grenadine, I think it"s called-and topped it off with a cherry. He slid it down the bar toward me, not spilling a single drop.
"Compliments of the lady," he said, and nodded toward a tall-backed booth deep in the recesses of the pub.
I tasted my drink. Ginger ale and cherry syrup. A Shirley Temple. It was the kind of drink served to little kids too young to be humiliated by it.
I walked deeper into the bar to see what I had already suspected. The girl in the booth was Ca.s.sandra. She wore a flowing orange gown and a wide-brimmed hat, looking like something right out of a painting. Her copper hair flowed over her shoulders in a perfect fall. Smooth att.i.tude poured from her like a scent. All the wires of everything I was feeling suddenly crossed at the sight of her, and I was at a loss.
"Was that you in the orange car, trying to kill me?"
"Do you want it to be?"
If I had chased her and cornered her, I might have acted differently. I might have demanded more answers right away, pushing until I got them. But she wasn"t cornered. I didn"t think she could be cornered in any situation. She just tried to kill you! I reminded myself, but the way she was looking at me now defused all my defenses. It was the same way she"d looked at me back at the ball-toss booth. As if she was drawn to me. As if she was somehow intrigued by me.
Who do you think you are? I said to myself. Look at you, standing here with your zits and your Shirley Temple. You look like an idiot, and she knows it.
Well, I didn"t have to be. I wouldn"t be.
I suavely slipped into the booth, pretending it didn"t hurt when I smashed my knee on the way in. "Thanks for the Shirley Temple. But couldn"t you at least have gotten me a root beer?" I tried to match her mysterious grin, but I had no idea whether I looked mysterious or dorky. I tried to focus on her eyes, but whenever I did, I couldn"t hear a word she said.
Better get used to it, I thought. There"ll be Ca.s.sandras everywhere once you get to college. If any girl there is ever going to give you the time of day, you"d better work up some major charisma. Fast.
For an instant I thought of Maggie, with whom I never had to work up anything but my own clunky self. But seeing Ca.s.sandra right in front of me kind of blew all other thoughts to smithereens.
"Enjoying yourself?" she asked.
I didn"t care to answer that one, because my answer wouldn"t exactly be suave and charismatic. "It looks like you sure are."
She shrugged. "I pa.s.s the time well."
"Is that what you call it-pa.s.sing the time? Luring people onto rides and watching them die?"
"They don"t die," she said. "Not exactly."
"Exactly what happens to them, then?"
"You"re in no position to ask questions."
"I"m asking anyway."
She considered that, then said, "If you lose your life on a ride, the park just . . . absorbs you. Simple as that." She stirred her drink, then touched the tip of my nose with her straw. "There are worse things."
I didn"t know if I was more taken or terrified by her. "Who are you?" I finally asked.
She looked into me with those strange icy-hot eyes. "Who am I? The sum of your dreams; the thrills you refuse to grasp; the unknown you fear."
"Gee, thanks for the haiku, but a picture ID would have been enough."
She wrinkled her nose, annoyed that I was no longer falling for the mysterious-woman act. Score one for me.
She sighed, looking down into her drink. "If this amus.e.m.e.nt park were flesh, then you could say I"m its soul."
I grinned in spite of myself. "The spirit of adventure."
Then her expression darkened. "Yes. . . . And I"m very, very bored."
I didn"t like the sound of that. I felt a certain pressure in my back that radiated outward, making my fingers grow warm. An adrenaline rush. The kind that takes hold when some primal part of you senses danger.
Suddenly Ca.s.sandra grabbed my hand. "Is that fear you"re feeling?"
I pulled my hand back. "It"s none of your business what I"m feeling."
She gave me an abrupt glare, as if I had slapped her, but like all of her expressions, it quickly changed. She was seductive and mysterious once more, but at least now some of her mysteries had been exposed. "I shouldn"t be keeping you," she said. "After all, you"ve got five more rides to get through."
"Or else what?"
She smiled. "Sammy can answer that one for you." She turned to the bartender, who was still endlessly wiping down the dry, clean bar. "Sammy?"
"Yes, Miss Ca.s.sandra?"
"How long have you been with us?"
The smile drained from the bartender"s face, and his eyes darted back and forth like it was a trick question.
"It"s all right. You can answer," Ca.s.sandra said.
Sammy swallowed hard. "Of course, I"d be guessing . . . but I"d say about thirty years now. I was fifteen then. I was on my third ride when I got caught."
"Caught?"
"You know . . . dawn," said Sammy.
"The sun rises, and we close our gates," Ca.s.sandra said. "If you"re not out of the park by dawn, then you stay."
I finally got the picture. Die on the ride and you"re part of the scenery. Get caught alive and you"re a slave of the park.
"There," said Ca.s.sandra. "Consider that incentive to play hard."
"It"s not all that bad here," Sammy said, nervously wringing his hands. "I"d rather be here than in The Works, that"s for sure."
"The Works? What"s that?"
But Sammy looked down, refusing to say another word about it. Instead, he took up his role as bartender again. "Can I get anything more for you, sir?"
"I"m sure Blake must be hungry. Why don"t you bring him the blue plate special?"
"Coming right up." Sammy disappeared into a small kitchen void of any chef.