by Peg Kehret
“What second one?” Mr. Streater said.
“After dinner, I tried to contact the spirits, the way The Great Sybil did. I was worried about Corey and I asked the spirits to let me know if Corey needs help.”
“And?” Mr. Streater said.
“And it happened again. The pencil moved by itself. It wrote, URGENT.”
She held out the piece of paper and Mr. Streater looked at it. As he slowly sat down, he said, “I don’t know what is going on here, but I don’t like it one bit.”
The telephone rang and Mrs. Streater answered.
“Hello?” she said. “He isn’t here. Is this Nicholas? Where are you? Isn’t Corey with you? Let me speak to your mother, please.”
As Ellen listened to her mother’s side of the conversation, her stomach began to turn flip-flops.
After she hung up, Mrs. Streater said, “Nicholas got sick and Julia brought him home. Corey stayed at the fair.”
“What?” Mr. Streater jumped to his feet. “She left Corey there by himself?”
Mrs. Streater’s voice, when she answered, sounded brittle, as if it would shatter into tiny pieces at any moment. “She thought Corey was with Ellen. She left him where they were showing the sheep and she said she knew you saw him, Ellen, and Corey promised to stay with you.”
“I did see him,” Ellen said. “But I saw Mrs. Warren and Nicholas, too. I didn’t know they were going to leave without Corey.”
“No one is blaming you. It was a misunderstanding.”
“How long ago did they leave him?” Mr. Streater asked.
Mrs. Streater leaned against the table, as if she was afraid she would fall over without support. “Julia said she and Nicholas have been home since three-thirty.”
Minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Streater and Ellen were in their car, driving toward the fairgrounds.
Silently, Ellen urged her father to drive faster. Hurry, Ellen thought. Please hurry! Corey is in terrible danger.
CHAPTER
10
COREY GRIPPED the side of the boat, certain he was going to be flung out as the boat sped down the waterfall.
The boat had a seat, with a safety belt, and a metal bar that pulled down across the lap of someone who was seated properly. But the men had shoved Corey into the boat and started the ride before Corey could use the safety devices. He stayed on the floor, clung to the side of the boat, and tried to keep his balance as the boat rushed forward.
After the boat plunged over the crest of the waterfall, it twisted around curves, jerked upward, and then dropped straight down, as if a trapdoor had opened underneath it. Corey’s knees left the floor and slammed back down. Corey had thought the roller coaster was exciting; this made the roller coaster seem like one of the kiddieland rides.
The boat zoomed around a curve and then slowed as it entered the blackness of the Tunnel of Terror. Corey blinked, trying to adjust his eyes to the dark. A huge hairy hand, holding a dagger, appeared just ahead. As the boat approached, the dagger, dripping blood, plunged toward Corey. Corey ducked, his heart drumming rapidly.
A cold wind blasted him from the right; when he looked, he saw a scarred, one-eyed face and heard a horrible laugh.
It’s all fake, Corey told himself. It’s just sound effects and tricks, like in the Historical Society’s haunted house that he and Ellen helped in last Halloween.
A large wolf-like animal rushed toward him, foaming at the mouth. Just inches from Corey’s boat, the wolf ducked down and then, as the boat passed, it leaped up again, snapping its huge jaws at Corey.
Corey leaned away from it, only to feel something slimy on the back of his neck. He gasped and twisted around. Wet seaweed dangled from above.
A sea serpent slithered partway out of the water; its claws reached toward Corey, trying to grab him and pull him into the water. The boat began to rock, throwing Corey violently from side to side.
Tears spilled down Corey’s cheeks. Even if the sea serpent was fake, it was the creepiest thing he had ever seen. And maybe it was real. He no longer knew what to think or believe. He had thought the man who ran The River of Fear ride would help him and instead he was a crook, too, and maybe they were never going to stop the ride and let Corey get off. What if that was how they planned to keep Corey from talking to a guard? Maybe Corey was going to keep going around and around on the ride, diving down Whiplash Waterfall and through the Tunnel of Terror for the rest of the night.
And, he knew, there was more ahead. He knew, from listening to The River of Fear spiel, that if he made it out of the Tunnel of Terror alive, he still had to face the monsters of Mutilation Mountain.
The sea serpent’s claws came closer. More wet, slimy seaweed dropped from the ceiling and brushed against Corey’s face. No matter which way he turned his head, fingers of seaweed reached for him. Corey smelled a dank, moldy odor. He screamed his silent scream, knowing he wasn’t making any sound, feeling the hurt in his throat, but unable to stop himself.
The boat bounced upward, as if the monster were underneath it. The serpent’s face emerged ahead of the boat now, its evil eyes gleaming red, and Corey was positive the boat and the serpent were going to collide. The serpent opened its huge jaws, revealing sharp fangs. The boat moved closer.
When the boat was inches from the serpent’s open mouth, the boat stopped.
The dim light went out; the serpent’s eyes ceased to glow. Corey was surrounded by total blackness.
All sound effects ended when the boat quit moving. Corey trembled in the bottom of the boat, waiting to see what would happen next.
Silence.
Blackness.
For a few moments, he thought this was just part of the ride and that, after a moment of stillness, something loud and ferocious and terrible would jump out at him. He gritted his teeth and braced himself but when the minutes stretched on and nothing happened, Corey realized that the ride had stopped.
Had the man stopped it on purpose or was it broken again? Whatever the reason, it was no longer running.
Corey was stuck in the middle of the Tunnel of Terror.
“NO,” the woman in the fair office said, as she looked at the picture of Corey that Mrs. Streater had in her wallet. “He has not come to the office for help. I’ve been here since noon. Are you sure he didn’t go home with a friend?”
“Positive,” Mr. Streater said.
“Did you have a meeting place selected, in case you became separated?”
“We didn’t bring him,” Mrs. Streater said. “He came with someone else.”
“The merry-go-round,” Ellen said. “Last year, when we came to the fair, we agreed to meet at the merry-go-round, if we got separated. Maybe Corey is waiting for us there.”
“I suggest you look there,” the woman said. “Meanwhile, I’ll alert the security guards to watch for him. What is he wearing?”
Mrs. Streater started to describe Corey’s clothing. Ellen added, “He has a big Batman bandage on his cheek.”
“I’ll have the guards look for him,” the woman said.
Mr. and Mrs. Streater and Ellen hurried to the merry-go-round. Corey was not there.
“Let’s check all of the most likely places, before we panic,” Mr. Streater said. “You know how Corey is. If he’s having fun, he probably hasn’t even realized what time it is. No doubt he is wandering around, making up some fantastic tale about carousel horses that fly or pretending he’s won first place in every competition and will have his picture in the newspaper. Ellen, you look in the sheep barn. Maybe Corey is hanging around there, watching Caitlin’s cousin.”
“I’ll check out the rows of food stands,” Mrs. Streater said. “He always wants to eat everything they sell.”
“I’ll do the midway rides,” Mr. Streater said. “Meet back here as soon as you can.”
Corey was not in the sheep barn. Ellen’s panic increased. If I ever needed help from a guardian angel, Ellen thought, now is the time. And any spirits who cared to guide her to Corey would b
e welcome, too.
Ellen rushed out of the sheep barn and ran toward The Great Sybil’s trailer. The small ticket booth was empty. A sign on The Great Sybil’s door said, CLOSED FOR DINNER, BACK IN 10 MINUTES.
Ellen knocked on the door. When there was no response, she pounded as hard as she could. “Sybil!” she called. “It’s Ellen Streater. I need your help.”
The door opened an inch. The Great Sybil peeked out.
“My brother didn’t come home,” Ellen said. “We think he’s lost at the fair, or else something has happened to him.”
The Great Sybil opened the door and motioned for Ellen to enter. She sat on one of the chairs and Ellen sat on the other.
“I tried the automatic writing at home, by myself,” Ellen said. “I got another message. It said: URGENT.”
“Oh, my,” said The Great Sybil. “The smaller one needs your help right now.”
“The trouble is, I don’t know how to help him. I don’t know where he is or what has happened.”
“Let us begin,” said The Great Sybil, as she dimmed the lights.
“I don’t have anything to write with.”
The Great Sybil opened a drawer on her side of the table and removed a yellow legal tablet and a pencil.
Ellen held them in front of her and forced herself to breathe deeply, trying to calm her jangling nerves.
“We beg for your help, loving spirits,” said The Great Sybil, without any preliminaries. “Ellen needs guidance. Please enlighten her. Let her know where her brother is.”
Silently, Ellen added her own plea. I know Corey is in danger. Please help me, spirits. Please help me find him before it’s too late.
Tears formed behind Ellen’s closed eyelids and she squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
“We await your message,” said The Great Sybil.
“Please hurry,” whispered Ellen. It was hard for her to keep her mind focused on the spirits. Her thoughts kept darting back to Corey and the various possibilities of where he might be. Should she be out searching for him instead of sitting here, hoping for a message that might never come?
“We await your message,” The Great Sybil said softly.
Ellen wondered how the woman could be so calm. Why didn’t she simply yell, “Hey, spirits! We need help fast!” If the angels or spirits or whomever she was talking to were as wise and loving as The Great Sybil said, they would understand the need to hurry.
“Please enlighten us,” The Great Sybil droned.
Ellen opened her eyes. She couldn’t waste any more time. “Sybil,” she said.
The Great Sybil’s eyes remained closed. Her hands were clasped tightly together as she silently beseeched the spirits for help.
As Ellen stared at the fortune-teller, the pencil leaped into motion. It jerked quickly across the paper, writing frantically, as if her hand were the mechanical hand of a robot and, once programmed, there was no way to stop it.
This time, of course, Ellen didn’t try to stop it. If the message would help her find Corey, it didn’t matter how she got it. The spirits could make her stand on her head and write with her toes, for all she cared, as long as Corey was safe.
The writing stopped. The pencil dropped from Ellen’s hand. As soon as The Great Sybil turned the lights up, Ellen read the message aloud.
It was the same back-slanted handwriting as before. This time it said, It is for you to know that there is darkness in the tunnel. The little one sees not. The sign is untrue. Go inside the darkness.
“The little one sees not!” Ellen said. “That sounds like Corey is blind.” The tears that she had been trying to hold back now trickled down her cheeks. “Why can’t the spirits talk in plain language?” she asked. “This sounds like they know where Corey is, so why can’t they just come out and tell us, instead of making it into a riddle?”
“You must remember,” The Great Sybil said, “that the spirits are no longer of this world. It may be extremely difficult for them to send any message at all in a language that we can understand.”
“It says the sign is untrue,” Ellen said.
“That puzzles me. What sign? Perhaps it means the other messages.” The Great Sybil looked perplexed as she studied the piece of paper, shaking her head.
“I had some signs; I thought they proved the message was from Grandpa. This must mean they weren’t signs from Grandpa at all; they were just memories, like my dad said.”
“Do not sound sad to have memories,” The Great Sybil said. “Happy memories are treasures to be cherished. If you remember good times with your grandfather, you can be with him in your mind whenever you wish. That is better than waiting for a sign, over which you have no control.”
Ellen stood up. “I’m going to find my parents,” she said. “If they haven’t found Corey yet, I’ll tell them about this new message. Maybe they can get more meaning out of it than we can.”
“I will come with you,” The Great Sybil said. “They will have questions for me.”
Ellen nodded. “Thank you.”
The Great Sybil locked the trailer when they left. She and Ellen hurried together across the fairgrounds, toward the merry-go-round. As they approached The River of Fear ride, Ellen stopped.
“Corey wanted to go on The River of Fear,” she said, “and it has a tunnel. There was an article about it in the paper and Corey kept talking about the Tunnel of Terror and how he couldn’t wait to see what was in it.”
“The ride is out of order,” The Great Sybil said, pointing to the CLOSED sign which hung at the bottom of the steps to the platform. “They’ve had trouble with it all week.”
Ellen looked at the darkened River of Fear. The loudspeaker that had boomed the spiel across the midway earlier, when she and Caitlin walked past, was silent.
“Maybe he was on it when it broke,” Ellen said. “Maybe he got hurt.”
“There’s a first-aid building on the fairgrounds,” The Great Sybil said. “Let’s go there.”
They walked away from The River of Fear.
CHAPTER
11
TUCKER KICKED The River of Fear control box. He did not like this plan. He did not like it one bit. It was easy for Mitch to tell him to stop the ride when the kid was inside the tunnel.
“Leave him in there until the fair closes,” Mitch had said. “By the time you let him out, it won’t matter how many cops he talks to. We’ll be long gone.”
“What about me?” Tucker said. “When he comes out, the kid will say I let you push him into the boat and the cops will start asking questions.”
“Just say the ride malfunctioned. You lunged for the Off switch and I accidentally knocked the kid into the boat. Nobody can prove otherwise. All you have to do is act concerned and make a fuss over him. It’ll be no problem. You’ll end up looking like a hero for fixing the ride and rescuing the kid.”
Tucker drank his coffee and looked at his watch. No problem. Ha. It was easy for Mitch to say, “No problem.” He wasn’t the one who would have to answer questions from the fair’s security guards and the kid’s parents and probably the cops and who knows how many others. Mitch and Joan would be off selling the loot and Tucker would be left to cover their tracks for them. He wasn’t sure twenty percent of the profits was worth it. He suspected he wouldn’t get the full twenty percent, either. He and Mitch might be brothers but there had never been a strong bond between them. Mitch had made that clear enough, when he refused to put up the bail last year when Tucker asked.
Tucker poured another half cup of coffee from his Thermos, sipping it sullenly. The kid was trouble. If he was smart enough to figure out Mitch and Joan’s method of operation, he was smart enough to know that he was not knocked into the boat accidentally.
What if the kid said that Tucker threw him in the boat? What if his parents called the cops? What if the cops decided to run a check on Tucker and found out he was wanted in Oklahoma on that car insurance scam? What, then? Why should he risk going to jail while Mitch and Joan and that to
ady little Alan got off scot-free?
No! Tucker slammed his cup down on the control box so hard that coffee sloshed over the rim. No way was he going to take a chance on getting arrested again. He should never have tried to help Mitch in the first place but, now that he had, the only choice was to get rid of the kid.
He would turn the ride back on, right now, wait until the kid’s boat came out, and let the kid get off.
He wouldn’t say a word. He wouldn’t pretend it had been an accident. He wouldn’t lie and say the ride had malfunctioned.
He would help the kid out of the boat—and then the kid would “accidentally” stumble and fall off the platform. The kid was short enough to go under the railing.
Tucker looked over the edge of the platform. There was no way a little kid could survive a fall from that height. It would be a horrible but completely believable accident. Lots of people stagger with dizziness when they get off The River of Fear ride; no one would doubt that the kid did, too.
Tucker himself would call for help. He would cry and go to pieces and tell how he tried to catch the kid before he went over the side. Tucker would give such a convincing performance that even the kid’s parents would end up feeling sorry for him. And the kid would never tell them anything. Not ever again.
COREY huddled in the bottom of the boat, waiting to see if it would start moving again. After a few moments, he sat up, keeping his hands in front of his face to protect himself from the slimy fake seaweed that now hung limply all around him.
With the eerie music and background noise silenced, and the boat standing still, it was easier to believe that it was only a ride and none of the evil creatures were real. Corey’s courage returned.
He could think of two reasons why the ride had suddenly stopped: either it was broken again or else the man had deliberately stopped it while Corey was inside. The second explanation seemed most logical, since the man had forced Corey into the boat and pulled the switch before Corey could get out again.
The man wanted to get rid of me, Corey thought. The man who ran The River of Fear ride was somehow connected with the thief. They threw me in here to keep me from telling the guards. Probably they plan to wait until the fair closes before they start the ride and let me off. By then, the thief would have stolen a million more wallets and purses and would be safely away from the fairgrounds.