“Someone hit you?” Ethan said, feeling something that would have been outrage once. “Where is he?”
“No, it ran into me . . .” she stopped, taking her hat off. “I think there’s blood.”
“Which way did he go?” Ethan said, and she said, “I don’t know” at the same time Glenda said, “Let it go, Ethan.”
Ethan started to speak and got one of his mother’s famous Don’t Argue looks.
“She hit her head and hallucinated the clown,” Glenda said, enunciating each word clearly. Then she turned to the bag lady. “You hallucinated it.”
The woman blinked at her and then said, “Yes. I did.”
“Okay,” Ethan said, and reached toward her. “Let me check your head.”
She stepped back, nostrils flaring as if she were catching wind of something. “I’m gonna say no on that.”
“Mab, Ethan has been in the military,” Glenda said proudly. “Ethan, this is Mab, she’s restoring the park.” She looked from Ethan to Mab and her smile faded.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan said.
“You look . . . so much alike,” she said, and then shook her head. “Never mind, I’m just so glad you’re here.”
Ethan looked at the bag lady. If he looked like that, he was closer to death than he’d thought. He said to the woman, “I’m trained in first aid,” trying to move the whole thing along before he passed out from exhaustion and alcohol.
“No, thank you,” she said.
Ethan circled around her to look at the back of her head. Her hair was a thick, red-brown choppy mess—it looked like she hacked it off with a knife—but he couldn’t see much blood so it was probably just a scratch, not a scalp wound or else it would have been a mess. Scalp wounds were bad, hard to stop the bleeding. And then if the bullet hit bone . . . Ethan closed his eyes for a second.
“What are you doing?” the woman said.
“You’ll be fine. Who hit you?”
“A FunFun ran into me.” She looked up at the carousel roof. “I was working on the FunFun up there, but he’s still there, and anyway he’s made of wood. The one that ran into me was a big metal-covered one, like the iron one by the gate. Did you see it when you came in?”
“No,” Ethan said, now realizing what had been missing. The damn clown statue.
“Then it was probably that one. Of course, that’s insane. I’m not insane.”
“Right,” Ethan said, glancing at his mother who looked sane but worried at the moment.
“I told her to get off that roof,” Glenda said, as if he’d accused her of not helping. “I told her to stop working.”
Whatever had rattled her before was gone, possibly because she’d gotten a grip and realized they didn’t look alike. Or possibly, she was just nuts.
Gus grabbed his arm and his attention. “Come on, I’ll show you how to do the Dragon run. Now that you’re here for good, you can take over.”
“See,” Glenda said to the woman, patting her arm. “Everything’s fine now. Gus is going to do the midnight Dragon run, just like always. Everything’s normal. No big iron, uh, robot clowns.”
“Robot clowns?” the woman said, flatly. “This park has robot clowns?”
“No, no.” Glenda patted again.
Patting, Ethan realized, was his mother’s main form of communication. That and a wide array of looks.
“I’ll take you back to the Dream Cream,” Glenda told her. “We’ll get that blood cleaned up, make you a cup of tea, you’ll be good as new.”
She gave Delpha a look, and Delpha nodded at her and then faded away from the carousel.
Glenda smiled at Ethan. “As for you, young man, you come right to my trailer when you’re done with Gus. Tomorrow I’ll get Hank’s old trailer cleaned out and made up for you. You’ll have a place of your own.” Her eyes welled up again. “I’m so happy you’re home, Ethan.”
“Right,” Ethan said. “Don’t clean up the trailer, I’d rather sleep in the woods. Are you sure you’re all right walking around here? If somebody’s in the park--”
“We’re fine,” his mother said firmly, and he thought, She knows who it was. “I’m so glad you’re back,” she added.
“Me, too, Mom,” he lied and made plans to get whatever the hell was going on out of Glenda once they were alone.
Once away from the carousel, the park seemed darker than Ethan remembered it, and he realized it was because there was orange cellophane over the streetlights for the park’s Screamland weekends, the reason for the skeletons somebody had strewn around along with—
A ghost flew in his face, empty-eyed and open-mouthed, and he held off on drawing his gun as the pulley it was on yanked it back into the tree he’d just passed, not a ghost, just a skull beneath some white stuff that looked like fog but was probably cheesecloth.
“Geez,” he said to Gus and Gus nodded.
“Mab knows how to make a ghost,” Gus said, and Ethan thought, I know how to make ghosts, too, as he relaxed his grip on his pistol.
He looked closer at the fence and saw the flickering red light of the infrared beam that had tripped the ghost, the same thing he’d seen in Afghanistan trip explosives. He shivered.
“Mab’s uncle got her the job,” Gus said as they headed down the midway to the back of the park. “Glenda wasn’t too sure about her since her uncle’s Ray Brannigan and you know them Brannigans, but once Mab got here, it was fine. Hard worker.”
“Brannigans?” Ethan said, keeping an eye out for more trip wire ghosts among the skeletons and giant spiders, which wasn’t easy, given his current alcohol content.
“Yeah, you know, that crazy family, always trying to shut us down.”
Ethan staggered a few steps and bumped into the fence and another ghost flew at him. He batted it out of the way as its pulley yanked it back into the trees. “Of all the times I could have picked to come home, I had to come for Screamland.”
“What’s that?” Gus said, cocking his head.
“I had to come home for Screamland,” Ethan said in a louder voice.
“‘Course you did,” Gus said. “Big party planned for Halloween cause that’s when the park’s gonna be all restored. We got media coming in Friday after next, get it on the news so a lotta people’ll come.” He sounded proud, like he talked about the media all the time.
“Great,” Ethan said in a normal voice and noticed that Gus didn’t hear. Well, he was old and running the damn Dragon Coaster couldn’t be easy on the ears.
The good news was the park would close after Halloween and stay closed until spring. He could stand two more weekends of the park full of screaming people and cheesecloth ghosts to spend whatever months he had left in solitude and quiet.
They passed the paddle boat dock. A figure moved in the shadows out there, watching them, and Ethan’s hand again went toward the gun tucked into his vest.
“That’s Young Fred,” Gus said.
Ethan relaxed. “Related to Old Fred?”
“Grandson. Old Fred died ‘bout seven years ago. Young Fred took over. He was only fifteen, but he stepped up.” Gus raised his voice to call out to the boy on the dock. “What are you doing out here?”
Young Fred shrugged as he came closer. “Heard the commotion from upstairs. Everything okay?”
“Mab fell down,” Gus said. “We gotta go run the Dragon.” He jerked his thumb toward Ethan. “This here is Ethan, Glenda’s boy.”
On that, Young Fred came all the way down to the beginning of the dock. “I heard about you,” he said to Ethan, admiration in his voice. “Big military hero. Navy SEAL.”
“Special Forces,” Ethan said, taking a dislike to Young Fred.
“Huh?” Young Fred said.
“Green Berets,” Ethan amplified.
“What are you doing here, man?” Young Fred said, dismissing that. “You got out of here. Why would you come back?”
“He came back cause this is his home,” Gus said sounding peeved. “We gotta go. You get on up to y
our place now.”
Young Fred took a last incredulous look at Ethan and went back to the boat dock house.
“He lives up there,” Gus said. “Keeps an eye on the place. Good boy.” He sounded doubtful on the last part.
Ethan looked past the dock to the Keep, the dark tower looming in the center of the paddle-boat lake. The drawbridge which usually touched down on the end of the dock was up and there were no lights on in the restaurant on the main floor, which, if memory served him right, was unusual. Of course, his memory was temporarily being sat on by many slugs of Jack.
They passed the battered Fortunetelling Machine that he had learned early was a complete crock, and Delpha’s tent-shaped booth that he’d carved a hole in the back of so he could listen to Delpha tell fortunes, which were not a crock. Then the Double Ferris Wheel, where he’d grabbed his first kiss, and the Pirate Ship with its dozen jolly plastic pirates looking brand new which was a testament to that Brannigan woman’s skill; they’d been in pretty bad shape since the glorious afternoon when he was twelve that he’d beat the crap out of them with a wooden sword and declared himself King of the Pirates. Then the games—Carl’s Whack-A-Mole was still there--and the food booths--if he never had another funnel cake again it was too soon--and finally the struts and tracks of the Dragon Coaster, with its massive wooden dragon tunnel arching over the highest loop waiting to swallow the cars on their last ascent, and the seven-foot iron-clad orange strongman statue in front of the Test Your Strength machine next to the entrance to the Coaster, now patched and painted and looking better than new. The whole thing looked great except for the dragon tunnel at the top of the coaster that was still missing the eye it had lost before Ethan could remember.
Gus climbed the stairs onto the wooden platform and went into the small booth that controlled the ride. He threw a switch and the thousands of tiny green lightbulbs that lined the course of the ride came alive.
Lit now, it looked smaller than Ethan remembered from all the times he’d snuck out of Glenda’s trailer at midnight to watch the Dragon soar, the times that Gus had told him stories of demons in the park and made him count the number of times the cars rattled at the end when they hit the dragon’s tail. Five meant the park was safe, he remembered now. Demons all locked up. Gus had even given the demons names. Tura, the one that looked like a mermaid: Ethan had had some fantasies about her. Fufluns, the good-time demon. Two others he couldn’t remember. And Kharos, the Devil.
It was a miracle he’d never had nightmares. At least not from his childhood.
The freshly painted blue and green cars were ready to go, their scales gleaming in the green lights on the tracks. Ethan stood with Gus on the platform as the old man pulled out his pocket watch and flipped open the lid.
“It’s time.” Gus shut the watch, stuffed it back into a pocket on his vest, entered the small control booth, and hit the controls.
With a shudder, the cars began moving, heading toward the first turn, gleaming in the lights as they shuddered their way up the incline over the Keep lake, the entire ride rattling as if it were going to fall apart any second, then swooping down into the curves. Ethan watched it in silence until the cars were slowly crawling up toward the pinnacle of the last loop, the dragon tunnel, at least a hundred feet into the air, the wooden struts supporting the track shivering and creaking in protest. The Dragon wouldn’t set any records for height. Or length. Or safety, Ethan thought, mesmerized by the creaking cars that sounded like they were going to collapse at any second. Perhaps they shouldn’t be running it any more than they had to.
“Gus? Maybe--”
Gus waved him off, walked to the end of the platform and unhooked the chain that closed off the service walkway. He stepped onto the walkway and then leaned over, putting the right side of his head right on top of one of the rails.
“Geez, Gus, that’s dangerous,” Ethan said, but the old man couldn’t hear him, focused on the vibration of the coaster. Ethan walked over and stood on the walkway, prepared to snatch Gus out of the way if the old man didn’t move before the Dragon came home.
The coaster went through the tunnel and roared down, racing into the high bank corkscrew turn called the Dragon’s Tail. The cars slammed back and forth on the rails and then splashed through the shallow water at the bottom toward the long straightaway leading back to the platform, and Gus stood up as it came in, his face grim in the light from the control booth.
“What’s wrong?” Ethan asked, worried the old man was going to have a heart attack.
“Only four rattles.” Gus headed back to the control booth, and Ethan followed close behind.
The Dragon pulled up to the platform, and Gus threw the lever, stopping it. The bars that kept people from falling out automatically lifted. He threw switches, powering down the ride, turning off the thousands of lights that lined the edge of the tracks, the pinpoint reflections in the water flashing out and leaving the lake lifeless. The park plunged back into darkness, a few streetlamps dotted here and there casting lonely cones of orange light through Glenda’s cellophane.
Ethan put his hand on Gus’s shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go back to the trailers--”
He stopped, suddenly alert.
Nineteen years of Special Operations duty in the Army and three plus years in combat: no amount of alcohol could wash those instincts away. Ethan fumbled for the pistol, finally pulling it out, the grip sweaty in his left hand. He blinked trying to focus, searching back and forth, the muzzle of the gun following his eyes as he tried to see into the dark shadows. He grabbed Gus’s arm. “Come on now,” he said and saw Gus looking at his chest, frowning.
He looked down and saw the tiny red dot of an infrared laser sight.
Oh, crap, he thought and then the round hit him.
Wild Ride
2
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Mab had let Glenda steer her to the Dream Cream and sit her down on one of the pink leather stools at the counter. She really wanted to keep going to the door to the back hall-one short flight up to her bed in Cindy's apartment and solitude and silence but she was feeling dizzy and her head hurt and she'd read something once about not falling asleep with a concussion. Also, she needed to find our what had hit her. If the damn kids from the nearby college were pulling a prank with the iron FunFun statue at the gate that she'd spent eighty hours restoring, heads were going to roll.
She touched the back of her own head gingerly. It hurt.
“Let me get you a cold cloth,” Glenda said. “You look kind of. . . gory.”
“Thank you.” Mab put her hat on the counter. The Formica was covered in retro pink swirls, so she stopped looking at it and tried to focus on the mirrored wall behind it, with its glass shelves of sundae dishes and milk shake glasses and the blackboard where Cindy wrote down the flavors for the day..
Glenda flipped up part of the counter and passed through to the other side. She took a clean dish towel out of the drawer, ran it under the cold water, wrung it out, and came back to stand behind Mab “Hold still,” she said, and pressed it to the back of Mab's head, where it stung for a moment and then just felt good.
“That's nice,” she told Glenda, and then the door opened and she heard her uncle Ray's voice saying, “What the hell happened?”
'She hit her head," Glenda said, her voice hard. She went around to the other side of the counter, looked at the bloody dish towel, and threw it in the trash.
Ray sat down on the stool beside her, his middle-aged muscular bulk crowding her. “You okay?”
“Getting there.” Mab touched the back of her head again and then looked at her fingers. No blood. Things were looking up.
“What are you doing here?” Glenda said to Ray. “It's past midnight.”
“Working late, like everybody else,” Ray said, trying to sound jolly, which was not in his skill set. He jerked his head toward the back of the store and evidently to the yar
d beyond that, where he kept the small RV he used as an office. “Cleaning up some filing.” He transferred his smile to Mab. “What a worker you are, Mary Alice. I told you she'd be great, didn't I, Glenda?”
Glenda nodded at Mab. “I'll make you a cup of tea,” she said, and began to fill the kettle.
“Let me see your eyes,” Ray said to Mab, and she turned and looked at him as he leaned toward her, big and sure and expensive in his Burberry coat with his miniature black-and-gold Ranger crest stuck to his lapel like a designer label.
He put his hand under her chin, which she hated, and she saw that his broad handsome face was getting puffy with age. She should tell him to stay away from close-ups with people. He looked a lot better from far away.
Wild Ride Page 2