Kill

by L. J. Smith

  Dee had taken up the Horse stance, in balance without effort, ready for anything. Audrey was flattened against the wall, the fiery light dancing crazily on her auburn hair. Michael's eyes were huge.

  A dull roaring began. It seemed to come from the earth itself, vibrating the floor against Jenny's feet.

  Oh, God, we did this to ourselves.

  Jenny's heart was pounding wildly, out of control. The light was like needles stabbing into her eyes. She was light-headed, half blinded, but she could no longer look away from the wheel.

  One final explosion of light-and the roaring became a tearing sound, like a huge tarpaulin ripping in giant hands. It made Jenny want to fall down, curl up, cover her ears.

  And then it stopped.

  Just like that. One moment agonizing light and deafening, screaming sound-the next moment perfect calm. The door was an oak door again. The wheel of runes was no longer spinning.

  But, Jenny saw, it wasn't exactly the way it had been. Dagaz, the rune Jenny had drawn at the top, was now at two o'clock. As if the spinning wheel had overshot slightly before stopping. And the runes burned like sullen coals in the wood.

  Jenny was breathing as hard as if she'd just run a race.

  "We did it," Dee whispered. Her lips were drawn back from her teeth.

  "Did we?" Michael asked huskily.

  There was only one way to tell. Jenny gave herself a moment, then slowly reached for the doorknob.

  She could feel her pulse in her hand as she grasped the knob. The metal wasn't even warm.

  She turned the knob and pulled the door open.

  Oh.

  Through the open door she could see, not the stairs down to her grandfather's basement, but utter blackness, like a night without stars.

  CHAPTER 4

  Switching on her flashlight, Jenny stepped forward.

  There was a resistance as she crossed the threshold. Not like anything solid, more like the g-force she'd felt when the plane accelerated to take off. It made her stumble, not hit the ground quite right.

  And the ground seemed to be asphalt. Jenny's flashlight beam made a white circle on it, catching something that looked like a small yellow flower. A smashed flower.

  No, not a flower, Jenny realized slowly. The shape was familiar but so far from what she expected to see that she didn't recognize it at first. It was a piece of squashed popcorn.

  Popcorn?

  Flashlights were switching on behind her, beams crossing and recrossing in the darkness. Dee and Audrey and Michael moved up beside her.

  "What the hell. . . ?" Dee said.

  There was a sound like a door slamming. Jenny swung her flashlight around just in time to see that it was a door slamming, it was the door to her grandfather's basement. She saw it for one instant standing shut, a door with no walls around it, and then it disappeared.

  Completely. It was simply gone, leaving them- where they were.

  "I don't believe this," Audrey said. The flashlight beams were almost pathetic in the darkness, but they showed Jenny enough.

  It was Michael who said it, in tones of shock and indignation.

  "It didn't work! After all that-and it's not the Shadow World at all!"

  They were in Joyland Park.

  It was Joyland, exactly as Jenny had seen it that afternoon-except now it was dark and deserted.

  The same wrought-iron benches painted green, with smooth wooden planks for backs and seats.

  The same fences (also green) caging in the same manicured bushes-"poodle bushes," Michael called them. The same pink-and-white begonias Jenny had noticed before-she always noticed flowers. Now their petals were folded tight.

  Jenny's flashlight beam caught a heavy-duty brown trash can, an old-fashioned signpost, candy corner, the signpost read.

  The candy store had metal shutters rolled down over its windows and the tiny lights around the signs advertising homemade fudge and caramel apples were off.

  Jenny just couldn't accept it.

  That afternoon the park had been filled with sound: babbling, yelling, ride noises, laughing, music.

  Now the only sound was her own breath. The motion was the gentle fluttering of pennants at the top of a roller coaster.

  Then she noticed something else moving.

  On a huge billboard the pirate chest was slowly opening and shutting like a clamshell.

  "Nobody's here-not even maintenance people," Dee was saying in dissatisfaction.

  "It's too late," Michael said. "They've all gone home."

  "But somebody should still be here. Look!" Dee's beam flashed across to a little orange cart, nosed up against a fence ahead of them. The cart looked a lot like something a maintenance person might use.

  But we didn't see it until after Dee mentioned maintenance people, Jenny thought.

  Not just her little fingers but the sides of her hands were beginning to tingle.

  There was something wrong here. It looked just like Joyland-from the artificial lagoon down to the refreshment cart with the red-and-yellow wheels. But it felt-wrong.

  As if something in the darkness was awake and watching them. As if the deserted park around her could come to life at any moment.

  "This place is creepy," Audrey announced suddenly.

  "Yeah, well." Michael laughed. "Nothing creepier than a closed amusement park."

  Words flashed through Jenny's mind. Did I ever tell you about this amusement park nightmare I had when I was a kid-?"

  "Listen." She turned around abruptly. "Besides Michael, has anybody else had amusement park nightmares?"

  Audrey stopped, flashlight drooping. After a moment she said in a subdued voice, "I have."

  Dee said quietly, "Me, too."

  "And so have I," Jenny said. "Maybe it's one of those universal things-"

  "An archetype," Michael interrupted pugnaciously, his voice wobbling slightly. "But so what? That doesn't mean anything... ."

  Jenny realized then just how bad his dreams must have been.

  "Don't be silly, Michael," Audrey said, very gently. She reached out and Michael snuck a finger into her hand. "You think?" she said to Jenny.

  "I don't know. It's nothing like I expected. It looks like Joyland, but-"

  "But Julian can make anything look like anything," Audrey finished crisply.

  Dee looked around, then chuckled. "All right! Listen, you idiots," she said, turning back to them.

  "This is good. If it is the Shadow World-or part of it-it's a place we've been. We'll have an advantage, because we know the terrain. And it's better than blue-and-green blizzards, or whatever Jenny saw out that window last time, right?"

  Audrey nodded without enthusiasm. Michael didn't move.

  "And if it's not the Shadow World, we're in real trouble. Because it means we've blown our chance to find Tom and Zach. Maybe our only chance."

  "Cest juste," Audrey said. "I forgot."

  Jenny hadn't forgotten. "We'd better check around. See if this is the real Joyland or-" She didn't need to finish the sentence.

  She didn't know exactly how they were supposed to tell. The place certainly looked authentic.

  They crept through the silent park, heading automatically for the front gates, passing a restaurant, dark and still.

  "What's that?" Audrey hissed. "I hear something."

  It was the sound of water. Faint, coming from up ahead.

  "It's the Fish Pond," Jenny said.

  She recognized the booth with its red-shingle roof. It was dark, like the other attractions. But when they reached it, she saw that the opaque water was swirling around its circular channel.

  "They wouldn't leave that on all night," Audrey said, needle-sharp. "Would they? Would they?"

  Jenny's pulse, which had been beating erratically, settled into a slow, heavy thumping.

  "You know what, Toto? I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," she whispered.

  "Well, well," Dee said, stepping forward. "How about this?"

  There was a
fishing pole leaning against the booth. Dee hooked an index finger around it.

  "Ah. Now. I have a very bad feeling about that," Michael said. It was the first time he'd spoken in minutes.

  Jenny understood what he meant. It was too obvious, too inviting. But they didn't know they weren't in Joyland. It was possible that the park might leave the water going at night. Maybe it kept algae from growing or something.

  "Shall I?" Dee said, twirling the pole. "Or shall I?"

  "You're enjoying yourself, aren't you?" Michael said, and there was something flatly resentful about his voice. "But there's other people here, you know. Whatever trouble you make affects us, too...."

  "Oh, come on, you guys. It's the only way to find out, isn't it?"

  Jenny chewed her lip. Sometimes Dee's recklessness went out-of-bounds, and nobody but Jenny could stop her. If Jenny didn't say anything, Dee would do it.

  Jenny hesitated.

  Dee lowered the line into the dark, rushing water.

  Jenny realized that she and Audrey and Michael were all braced. None of them was stupid. If this was the Shadow World, something bad would happen. Something bad.

  The line dangled in the water, slack. Dee jiggled the pole while Jenny thought of all the things that might come up. Dead kittens. Severed hands. Mutant marine life.

  Julian knew what you were thinking. He took things from your mind and made them real. So if they were in the Shadow World, then the worst thing-the worst thing that any of them was thinking-

  "A bite," Dee said. "No, maybe it's just caught."

  She leaned over to look, catching the thick yarnlike line in her bare hand and tugging.

  "Dee-"

  "Come on, come on." Dee tugged, then reached into the water to grope. "What's wrong with-"

  "Dee, don't-"

  Audrey screamed.

  The water erupted.

  Jenny had seen a geyser once, not Old Faithful, but a smaller one. This looked just the same.

  There was an explosion of mud-colored water, straight up. It splattered across Jenny's face and beaded on her windbreaker. Then it just stayed there, until Jenny suddenly realized that it wasn't water at all, it was something that had come out of the water. Something that had come out and grabbed hold of Dee.

  A man-it had hands like a man that were around Dee's throat. But something kept Jenny's brain from recognizing it as a man. In another instant she saw what it was.

  The thing had no head.

  Its body ended at the shoulders with the stump of a neck. The thing had volition, though, even if it didn't have a brain. It was trying to drag Dee under the water.

  All this passed through Jenny's mind in less than a second. Plenty long enough, though, for the thing to wrestle Dee almost to the water's surface.

  I'm not brave. I don't know how to fight. But she was grabbing at the thing's arm with both hands. To her horror, her fingernails sank in, penetrating the arm beneath the tatter of a sleeve.

  It smelled. It smelled incredibly. Something terrible had happened to the flesh, turning it into a kind of white, waxy stuff that quivered loosely on its bones.

  Like-like that clammy clinging stuff novelty stores use for flesh. Jenny's little brother Joey had a fake snake made out of it. But this creature's flesh was nothing fake. When Jenny involuntarily snatched her hand back, she saw that her nails were full of it.

  Everyone was shouting. Somebody was screaming, and after another second Jenny recognized her own voice. With both legs trapped up against the booth and Michael and Audrey hanging on to her, Dee didn't have room to kick. She was fumbling with the knife at her belt.

  She got it free and her arm went up-and then Michael yanked her and the wicked-looking river knife fell into the swirling water.

  "Her shirt! Her shirt! Her shirt!" Michael was yelling. The body now had Dee by the collar. Michael was trying to pull Dee out of the shirt, but the buttons in front were holding.

  Jenny didn't want to touch the headless thing with her bare hands again. She didn't, she didn't-but then the thing wrestled Dee's head almost into the water, and Jenny found herself grabbing its rubbery arm again. It was bent over, dunking Dee's head like someone dunking wash in a river, and Jenny stared directly into its neck-stump. Nothing about its body was nice to look at. What flesh could be seen through the rags of clothes was grotesque-bloated and swollen until it looked like a Kewpie doll that had been boiled and then inflated with a bicycle pump.

  The screaming and shouting were still going on. None of their pulling was doing any good. Without conscious thought, Jenny found herself scrambling over the wall of the booth, over the channel.

  One leg dangled in the rushing water, then she was standing in the booth behind the headless thing.

  "Pull, Michael! Pull!" Jenny grabbed the thing from behind, arms closing around its waist just above the water level. The waist squashed, like an overripe peach. She could feel things shifting inside the dripping clothes. Her cheek was pressed up against the back of its wet shirt. She locked one of her hands around the opposite wrist and pulled harder.

  Oh, God-the smell. She opened her mouth to scream again at Michael and gagged instead She couldn't see anything that was going on in front. All she could do was hang on and keep pulling backward.

  The thing seemed to be rooted in the water. She couldn't drag it out. It was a ghastly tug-of-war, with her pulling at the body and Michael and Audrey pulling at Dee. But suddenly she felt something give. The body lurched backward, the tension was gone. Dee was free.

  Jenny let go and staggered into the wall of prizes behind her. The thing's arms flailed for a moment, coming in contact with nothing but air. Then, as if something had grabbed its feet and jerked it sharply downward, it disappeared into the dark water.

  Everything was silent again.

  Jenny was sitting in a litter of plastic whistles, cellophane leis, Matchbox cars, and stuffed koalas.

  She picked herself up, swaying, and looked over the water channel.

  Dee was sprawled almost on Michael's lap. Audrey was half kneeling, half crouching beside them.

  Everyone was breathing hard.

  Dee looked up first. "Jump over quick," she said in the voice of someone who's had strep throat for a week. "I don't think it can see, but it can feel when you touch the water."

  Jenny jumped over quick, discovering in the process that she'd hurt her ankle sometime, and then all four of them just sat on the asphalt for a while. They were too tired and stunned to talk.

  "Whatever it was, it wasn't human," Audrey said at last. "I mean-apart from the head-a human body couldn't look like that."

  "Adipocere," Michael got out. "It's what human flesh turns to after a while under water. It's almost like soap. My dad had a mask like that once-he got rid of it because it freaked me out." Michael's father wrote science fiction and had a collection of masks and costumes.

  "Then that whole thing was your fault," Dee said unkindly, voice still hoarse. "Your nightmare."

  Michael, surprisingly, looked hopeful. "You think so? Then maybe I don't have to worry anymore.

  Maybe the worst's over-for me."

  "If your dad had a mask, it wasn't headless, was it?" Jenny said.

  "No. What?" Michael looked confused.

  "I mean that monster wasn't exactly what you had nightmares about. I think Julian is putting his own little twist on things this time. Besides . . ." Something had been nagging at Jenny since the figure had come shooting up out of the water. A feeling of familiarity. But how could she be familiar with something as monstrous and repulsive as that? Audrey was right, it hadn't even looked human, except that it had two legs and two arms and wore clothes. ...

  Wore clothes . . . dank and stinking . . . tattered and dark with water . . . but familiar. A long flannel shirt, black-and-blue plaid, unbuttoned.

  "Oh, my God. Oh, my God, oh, my God-" Jenny had gotten to her knees, her voice shrill. "Oh, my God, no, it was Slug! Don't you see? It was Slug, it was Slug..."
>
  She was almost screaming. The others were staring at her with sick horror in their eyes. Slug Martell and P. C. Serrani were the two tough guys who had stolen the paper house from Jenny's living room-and disappeared into the Shadow World. None of Jenny's friends had much sympathy for them, but this ... nobody deserved this.

  "It wasn't Slug," Audrey whispered.

  "It was. It was!"

  "Okay." Dee, eyes wide, scrambled on her knees over to Jenny. She put her arms, slim but hard as a boy's, around Jenny. "Just stay cool."

  "No, don't you see?" Jenny's voice was wild and keening. "Don't you see? That was Slug, without a head. In Michael's dream he saw Summer's head. What if we find Summer's body, like that?

  What if we find Summer?"

  "Damn." Dee pulled back and looked at Jenny. "I know you think it's somehow your fault that Summer died-"

  "But what if she's not dead? What if she's wandering around here-" Jenny could feel herself spiraling out of control. She was hyperventilating, hands frozen into claws at chest level.

  Dee slapped her.

  It was clearly meant to be restorative and it worked, mainly because Jenny was utterly shocked.

  Dee often threatened physical violence but never, ever used it except in self-defense. Never. Jenny gave a sort of hiccup and stopped having hysterics.

  "It's bad," Dee said, her dark eyes with their slightly amber-tinted pupils close to Jenny's and unwavering. "It's really bad, and nobody's saying it isn't." She fingered her throat. "But we have to stay calm, because otherwise we're dead. Obviously we're in the Shadow World-I guess nobody is going to argue about that"-she glanced behind her at Audrey and Michael-"and this is some new Game Julian has dreamed up for us. We don't know what to expect, we don't even know the rules.

  But one thing we do know: If we let it get to us, we're dead before we start. Right?" She shook Jenny a little. "Right?"

  Jenny looked into those eyes with their lashes thick as spring grass and black as soot. It was true.

  Jenny had to get a grip, for the sake of the rest of them. For Tom's sake. She couldn't afford to go crazy right now.

  She hiccuped again and unsteadily said, "Right."