Wild Ride

by Jennifer Cruisie

  He sounded suspicious, the way he said “Ray” sounded like “Batty Brannigan” to Mab, and she steeled herself for whatever insult was coming next.

  “Because I'd think after growing up around here,” he said, “the last thing you'd want to work on would be an amusement park. Didn't you get sick of this place as a kid?”

  “I was never here as a kid,” Mab said. “I wasn't allowed to come anywhere near here. I could hear the music at night during the summer, we didn't live that far away. And I could see the lights from our attic window.” She swallowed, the yearning for lights coming back to her as if thirty years ago were yesterday, and then smiled tightly at him. “I never got to conic here, but I did all my college art history work on carnivals and amusement parks and gypsy wagons, and I did my thesis on carnival art, so .... no, this is not something I'm doing for Ray.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. “So this means a lot to you, being in Dreamland.”

  “No, it's just a job,” Mab lied.

  “Right.” Ethan looked uncomfortable, and Mab would have changed the subject, but he beat her to it. “What's it mean to your uncle?”

  “What?”

  “He's here a lot. What's he want with Dreamland?”

  “I have no idea,” Mab said. “Can I go back to work now?”

  “Is there something here he wants?” Ethan said, not moving. “Or is he just coming here now because he couldn't when he was a kid?”

  “He came all the time when he was a kid,” Mab said. “He had his get-out-of-town epiphany here when he was fifteen.”

  “What?” Ethan scowled at her, as if she was being obscure.

  “My mother said Ray came here one Halloween night and the next morning, he started doing everything he could to get out of Parkersburg.” Of course, Mab thought, being a Brannigan in Parkersburg was enough reason to do everything you could to get out of Parkersburg.

  “Fifteen,” Ethan said. “What happened?”

  “I don't know. He left the day after he graduated high school three years later and didn't come back, so I don't know him very well.” The pause after that stretched out, so she added, “I was two when he left. We hadn't bonded.”

  “He's back now.”

  “Yes, he is. I have to work now.”

  “Have you ever seen guys dressed in black running around here at night? Black ops?”

  “No. But I wouldn't, not unless they ran me down. I concentrate on my work. Which I should get back to.”

  “Somebody with high-tech equipment was in the park last night. That's who -”

  “High tech?” Mab said, interested now. “High enough to animate an iron statue?”

  “- shot me.”

  “Because that would be helpful. Frankly, the hallucination thing seems far-fetched, but I know what I saw, and I couldn't have seen that, so that left me with hallucinations, which is so unlike me, I'm a very calm person, and then you saw clown footprints, but if it's Men in Black animating statues Then the rest of what he'd said sank in. ”You got shot?“ She surveyed him doubtfully. ”You look okay."

  “It was a strange bullet.” Ethan looked down at the base of the fortuneteller, frowning harder. “Can I borrow that magnet for a second?”

  She picked up the magnet from the top of her hag and handed it over. “So you think it was a high-tech thing? Not the FunFun from the gate?”

  “No, it was the statue from the gate. We found it behind the Mermaid Cruise.” Ethan dug in his pocket and brought out something that looked like a ring of barbed wire. It got sucked right to the magnet as soon as he brought it within a few inches.

  “What's that?”

  “The round that hit me. But bullets are made of lead or stee. Not iron.”

  “That's a bullet?” Mab said, and then shook her head. “Never mind, I don't care. So you found the gate Fun Fun. Thank you. Put it back where it belongs and I'll fix it. I need to work on this now.”

  “So who have you seen in the park at night?”

  Mab sighed. Maybe if she cooperated, he'd leave faster. “Until eleven, anybody in the Beer Pavilion, but they make a beeline from the front gate to the Pavilion and back again, so they're easy to avoid. After eleven, it's just the people who live here.” When he waited, she elaborated. “Glenda, Gus, and Delpha back in the trailers. Young Fred in the apartment over the paddleboat dock. Cindy and me in her apartment over the Dream Cream.”

  “What about Young Fred?”

  Mab frowned. She had work to do. “What about him? He lives over the paddleboat dock. He's a terrible comedian. He keeps an eye on the gate for Gus.” She thought about Young Fred. “He's not a happy person. I don't know why he doesn't leave. He doesn't like it here. Not the way the others like it.”

  Ethan shook his head. “I saw him last night on the dock after you an into the clown. He was watching you.”

  “He watches everything. He's bored.”

  “Who inside the park would betray it?”

  “Nobody,” Mab said. “Glenda and Gus and Delpha live for this park. Cindy runs the food concessions, and she plans on staying here forever. She told me that when she dies, she wants her ashes scattered in the Keep lake while the carousel plays 'What Love Can Do.” When Ethan frowned, she added, “It's her favorite song, but it's not going to happen because the carousel doesn't play 'What Love Can Do.”

  “Right,” Ethan said. “The others, then, the help, somebody with a grudge -”

  “You're wasting my time. The permanent help, the people who would know the park the way you're thinking, they're all local, and the park is what keeps Parkersburg going. My uncle is going to get named mayor for life because he's restoring it. Nobody in town would do anything to jeopardize this park - it's their lifeblood. Your Man in Black is not local.”

  “What about - ?”

  “I don't know anything else,” Mab said, her patience exhausted. "Look, I only have two weeks left to finish this park before the big Halloween weekend, and if some moron is vandalizing it, I'd appreciate it if you'd find him and stop him, but other than that, I don't know what's going on.'

  “Okay,” Ethan said. "Keep your eyes open. Tell me if you see anything strange.'

  Mab looked back at the Fortune-Telling Machine. “Right.”

  Ethan nodded and began to walk off and then turned back to her. “Anybody ever say anything to you about demons in the park?”

  “Only my grandmother, who sold anti-demon charms, so she had a financial interest in the rumor. And my mother, who was nuts.”

  Ethan nodded. “How about Fufluns? Anybody ever say anything about somebody named Fufluns?”

  “No,” Mab said, frowning. “You mean FunFun?”

  “No,” Ethan said. “Thanks for your time.”

  He walked down the midway toward the back of the park, and Mab tried to put her mind back on her paint.

  Demons.

  The iron clown had said, “Mab” as it stretched out its hand to help her tip, Maybe that week she'd been staring at it, leaning in close to put the details in the face, maybe something inside it had been staring back. She tried to look inside the box at Vanth, but the glass was too clouded. Maybe it was staring back, too, shuffling through its cards, getting ready to send her another message. Like STAY AWAY FROM THE CLOWN, HE'S MINE.

  Well, that was crazy. I am not crazy.

  Maybe she should tell somebody the machine was talking to her with cards. Of course, that on top of everything else could get her committed.

  “I need help,” she said out loud.

  The machine whirred and spit out a card:

  FIND THE KEY AND OPEN THE DOOR AND HELP WILL BE AT HAND.

  Mab stared at it for a long time. That could be a fortune. It wasn't a great fortune, but it was ... optimistic. Optimistic was good.

  “Okay, then,” she said, and went back to open her can of primer.

  At six thirty, Mab straightened up, pushing at the small of her hack to shove her spine into place, and looked at the Fortune-Telling Machine
in the light from her miner's hat. She had the entire exterior cleaned, Primed, and ready for the undercoat, as long as it didn't rain or drop below fifty degrees the next day. But she still hadn't found a way into the box. “There's got to be a way,” she told Vanth.

  “There's always a way,” a light voice said from behind her, and she turned to see the guy with the good shoulders from the Dream Cream there in the twilight, taller than she remembered, more curly-headed than she remembered, but just as cheerful as she remembered, his hands in his pockets, relaxed and smiling that crooked smile at her again. “I'm Joe. From this morning in the Dream Cream, remember?”

  She pulled her paint coat closer around her. “Yes.” She turned back to Vanth to get her bearings. It wasn't like he was drop-dead handsome. Or built like a wrestler. Or -

  He came closer. “What's the problem?”

  “The latch.” Mab gestured to the box so she wouldn't have to look at him because her brain seemed to short out when she did that. “On the back, the latch that opens the door. It's ... strange.”

  “Let's see it,” Joe said, and walked around to the back.

  “It's complicated.” Mab went around the other side of the machine in time to see him pull the door open a couple of inches, using the tail of his shirt. “How did you do that?”

  “You push it and lift it.” Joe tugged on the door again to open it the rest of the way, and Mab heard metal complaining.

  “Wait a minute.” She went back to her paint bag to get her WD-40 and pumped oil into the hinges and then rocked the door gently back and forth so that it opened a little more. “This is excellent. Thank you.”

  “You're welcome.”

  She pumped in more oil and rocked the door again, and it gave up another couple of inches, enough that she could see inside.

  It was a mess: dust and cobwebs and rust, all of it shrouding the back of the iron statue of Vanth -

  Joe moved in closer to see, too, and she was so aware he was there and near that she stopped thinking about Vanth.

  “Wouldn't it be better if you did this in daylight?” Joe said.

  Mab swallowed. “I have the light on my hat. I can do it now. Thank you for helping. Good-bye.”

  “Or you could have dinner,” Joe said. “With me.”

  She lost her breath again. It was ridiculous. She hadn't been this lame in junior high.

  Of course, no boys had talked to her in junior high. And there hadn't been any boys like this in junior high, not even close.

  “I just got this open, so I should keep working.”

  “Did you have lunch?” he said, his voice full of laughter.

  “No. I was working.”

  “So it's been, what, nine hours since you had food?”

  “Yes,” Mab said, suddenly feeling hungry. “Could you show me how coo opened this latch so I can do it, too?”

  “If you'll have dinner with me.”

  Mab frowned, caught between exasperation and increasing stirrings.

  “This box is open now.”

  “Look, you have to eat,” Joe said reasonably. “Starving yourself will not help you work. Show me the park between here and the Pavilion, and Ill feed you.” He grinned at her. “They do have food, right?”

  “Hot dogs. But this box is -”

  “Dinner first. Then I'll show you the latch. And then tomorrow in the light of day, you can see what you're doing.”

  “I have my miner's hat,” Mab said, pushing it back off her forehead.

  His smile widened, and Mab remembered the Dream Cream that morning. How had he managed to pass by Cindy to come find her in her paint-stained canvas coat and yellow miner's hat? What kind of guy found that attractive? “What are you up to?”

  “I'm hungry,” Joe said. “I want to eat. With you. Soon. Are you always this difficult?”

  “Yes,” Mab said, and considered the situation. She did have to eat, in fact, she was starving now that she thought about it. And it was growing dark, and she did need daylight to see the entire inside of the machine; a miner's hat could only do so much.

  And she really wanted to go with him.

  “Okay, but we go dutch,” she told him.

  Joe sighed. “Fine. Which way do we go to get to the Pavilion?”

  “Either way around the lake,” Mab said. “Although it's shorter if we go to the right.”

  “The left it is.“ Joe closed the door to the Fortune-Telling Machine and then took her elbow and steered her toward the midway. She tried to look back, and he said, ”Nope, keep your eyes ahead so you can see what's coming for you."

  “What's coming for me?” Mab said, looking around.

  “Me,” Joe said, and she gave up and let him take her where he wanted to go.

  Ethan decided he'd more than earned his pay in the last twenty-four hours. Getting shot had not been in the job description, and when it had been in his previous job, he hadn't much cared for the experience. And then there was his mother and Gus, losing their minds. He pulled his flask out and took a long swallow. The hell with this.

  He looked up, searching in the fading daylight for the highest point in the park: the blinking lights on the star-shaped top of the Devil's Drop, conveniently located right in front of the Beer Pavilion and therefore his star to steer by in his quest for drink and Ashley. She'd acted weird this morning, but then again, so had everyone else in Dreamland. He walked around the lake that surrounded the Keep, being careful not to trip any more of the cheesecloth ghosts, past the Worm and the Tunnel of Love and the OK Corral games and the Devil's Drop, and on up to the Pavilion, where he heard voices raised in drunken revelry.

  There wasn't much time could do to the Beer Pavilion. Long wooden tables that had been scarred and splintery before the Depression were scattered around an open fire pit in front of the newly repainted bar. Behind the bar was a row of kegs, a Coke cooler, a hot dog grill and bun steamer, and a girl dressed in Dreamland's version of German Oktoberfest, accepting the one-dollar per plastic cup and two-dollar hot dog fees along with whatever tips her cleavage drew. The place was packed with regulars from Parkersburg; even Ray was leaning on the bar, watching the crowd.

  Gus waved Ethan over from a table near the back, but Ethan looked for Ashley, stopping when he found her sitting close to some balding guy he didn't recognize. She looked different - older, harder, not as bouncy. Ethan walked right past her table, and she didn't even give him a glance, although he slowed enough to give her plenty of time to see him, enough time for him to see the wedding ring on the guy's hand as it moved to Ashley's thigh. He felt stupid, then angry, then sad, like three blinks of the eye, and then he sank back into the hopelessness that had been ruling his life since Afghanistan and the bullet threatening his heart.

  “Ethan!” Gus called, and Ethan stopped by the bar to grab a plastic cup of Ohio's finest, whatever the hell it was, and dropped two bucks on the table - one for the beer, one for the tip - which made the girl in the peasant top smile at him before she moved on to smile at the next guy. He stopped beside Ray, who now seemed to be coin-checking complete strangers - some guys couldn't leave the Army behind - and caught his eye.

  “Found your statue,” Ethan said.

  Ray smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Great.” He went back to doing coin challenges with his ugly iron coin.

  Ethan went to the back of the Pavilion and sat down. Gus acknowledged his presence with a nod, his sagging face even saggier.

  Ethan's eyes slid back to Ashley. She was leaning on the guy now, whispering in his ear.

  “Demons,” Gus muttered.

  “Women,” Erhan said, and drank some of his beer.

  Mab had started down the midway with Joe, trying not to hyperventilate like a teenager on her first date. It was just so unlike her to be swamped with... well, feelings. Maybe it because I hit my head last night -

  “What's that?” Joe pointed to the blue-striped wooden Oracle booth to the left of the Fortune-Telling Machine, festooned with signs – CAR
EER PROSPECTS, TRUE LOVE, FAMILY AND FRIENDS - under a much bigger sign in gold that said DELPHA'S ORACLE: DREAMLAND PSYCHIC.

  “That's where Delpha tells fortunes during the summer. It was built in '72, so it's got that hippie-dippie thing going for it, but I still like it. It wasn't too hard to restore except for a hole some delinquent had carved in the back.” Mab nodded at the next ride on the left as they followed the Lttrved flagstones around the lake. “The Double Ferris Wheel is from 1926. Incredible detail.” She nodded to the right, at a black ship half in the waters of the Keep lake, its deck full of plastic pirates. “Pirate Ship. They Put that in during the fifties.” She scowled up at it. “I spent way too long on those pirates. Some idiot had beaten them with a board or something, and they were a mess.” She pulled him into the center of the midway as they walked. “Stay away from the fence, that's where the triggers for the ghosts are. They're just cheesecloth and papier-mâché but they'll still scare the hell out of you.” She smiled at the thought. “It's an old-fashioned way to make ghosts, but it's good.”